YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
Still? What are you talking about? Age only serves to increase pervosity...
(Note, this apparently also applies to shipgirls, as they're in their 70's at least)
Taylor Varga (Worm/Luna Varga)
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
- Start date
- Crossover
Still? What are you talking about? Age only serves to increase pervosity...
(Note, this apparently also applies to shipgirls, as they're in their 70's at least)
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
- Pronouns
- Yes
Amusing, but not what I was talking about.
1) What you're talking about is no healing, so as I said the healing isn't a threat.
2)You're right about what Amy can do, but since she doesn't use her powers that way she wouldn't get labeled a Striker any more than Glory Girl would be labeled a blaster for her ability to throw ball bearings like bullets, or Lilly would get labeled a Striker for her ability to destroy matter she touches.
3)She can make bio-constructs that do almost anything she can do by touch, so the important threat is Tinker, not Striker because keeping your distance from her is NOT going to make you any safer.
No, not always and the only way to describe being in two places at once is as a Master ability.
No it isn't. Or if it is it's so limited as not to be worth mentioning.
Also Telepathy does NOT automatically produce "Thinker 10+". Unlimited telepathy would, but none of the telepaths (Cherish, Skitter, Heartbreaker, etc...) or suspected telepaths (Bitch, before the Bank incident) in canon got that rating.
I look at it as Taylor\Varga creating a composite body sort of like very superficially connected siamese twins and then have each part of the composite body on either side of the space warp.
For example, having a Taylor and a Saurial joined together at the tips of their tails with the join passing through the warp. The warp can then be stretched and the ends moved around to allow the two "halves" independent motion.
Or the "join" between the bodies could also be aligned with a pocket so the contents of the pocket (ie cellphone etc) is available to both bodies and won't fall to the floor when doing the pseudo-teleport trick.
It would be far more complex to achieve but the technique should eventually, with lots of practice, lend itself to three or more apparently independent bodies. It would all depend on how good Taylor can get at multitasking.
And, oh, the potential for practical jokes and trolling!
- Location
- Home
You are taking that the rating is a Threat Rating and running on the other way that they can be used in fight, Healing is a threat from the point of view that any hurt subject on their side can be put back on the field, same reason why Othala regeneration granting power is a threat.
That she can do it is all that's needed for there to be in a Threat Rating, Brute rating usually considers that they can pick stuff up and throw it, Blaster power usually means they don't need anything extra, Aegis and Glory Girl can both pick things up and throw them, but Gallant can hit you with just his power generated blasts.
Bio-contructs enter in Tinker, I agree, mostly because they need work-time for them. Amy's biokinetic striker power is more dangerous than Clockblocker's time stopping touch for anything biological, she can induce cellular death on touch or at least disconnect the brain from the rest of the body. That's a threat.
- Pronouns
- Yes
That's a point, so maybe Striker 2 instead of Striker 0 but it's not a signioficant threat on its own.
No, Othala's power lets her turn any of her allies into a mid/low level brute for a short time, that's much more significant (in terms of immediate threat) than "can heal anyone".
The threat rating is based on what and how they actually use their power. Someone who makes a habit of using their power to fire things at people at dangerous speeds gets a Blaster rating, someone who doesn't do that doesn't get the rating regardless of capability (or gets a reduced rating because they might do this someday)
Yes, it's a threat but it's better addressed as a subrating of Tinker or not at all because "Striker" gives the misleading impression that as long as you keep your distance from them they can't affect you, which is very much not the case with Amy.
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- Location
- Earth Bet
Well it'd be combo tinker/striker, because tinkers need their tech to do what they do, while Amy doesn't need anything to KO someone. It's common knowledge that she can at least put people to sleep, and a nearly instant combat disable is pretty powerful. Striker...3, maybe? Because it doesn't do direct damage.
All that said, I'd imagine they'd include power subsets based on what is known they can do. IE Tinker 8(Striker 3, Brute 8, Mover 6).
- Pronouns
- Yes
That makes sense. I was mainly countering the "Striker 9" and I might have gone too far in the other direction.
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- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
I chapter at you!
187. Up and Down
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Colin looked around as an alarm beeped at him, not one he instantly recognized. A moment's searching through his screens and he stiffened in shock.
"Which one is that?" Dragon asked from where she was checking the new portal generator parts.
"Dinah Alcott. Prospect. Her subdermal tracker just went offline."
"Oh. Fault, or deliberate?" His friend came over to watch as he brought up the tracker log and quickly scanned it.
"Not a fault, the diagnostics show it was fully functional with no reported errors moments ago..." He put the location up on the map, showing the girl's movements for the last half hour. Then he relaxed slightly.
"She's at the DWU, the last reading was immediately outside the BBFO office," he said, indicating the breadcrumb track overlaid on the map of the city. Zooming in, he could see that the girl had traveled down what he recognized as the accepted safest way in and out of the docks, at a speed consistent with a vehicle, paused at the gate, then stopped for a while outside the admin building. After that the speed dropped to a walking pace until she vanished from the log.
"The transmitting frequency of the beacon is outside the one that the repeater system I recommended handles, which would explain why it dropped off when she went into an EDM shielded space. But I'd better check, even so."
Picking up his PRT phone, he scrolled through the contacts to find the girl's mother's number, then called it. When she answered, he said, "Mrs Alcott, this is Armsmaster. I was just checking that nothing is amiss, since your daughter's tracking unit went offline approximately three minutes ago. You are at the BBFO office for some reason?"
"Oh, hello," the woman said, not saying his name as he'd drilled into her when they'd discussed the tracker. "Yes, everything is fine. I may have a cup of tea, in fact." He relaxed fully as she said the non-duress code phrase. "We're visiting the Family with my brother."
"Understood. I was momentarily concerned when the tracker vanished, but that's because the building you're in is heavily shielded. Thank you. Please enjoy your visit, the Family are very interesting."
"We've already noticed," she chuckled. "Thanks for your concern, I'm sorry to have worried you. We didn't think about that."
"There was no reason for you to do so, the matter is of technical interest but not the sort of thing most people would know about. In that case, I'll get back to work."
"Good-bye," she replied, hanging up. He put his phone down, then made a note in the log, before closing the window.
"False alarm, thankfully."
"Why are they at the DWU?" Dragon asked curiously.
"Apparently a social visit with the Mayor. Nothing to be concerned about." He looked at her. "I expect the Director might think otherwise, but Dinah is not yet an active Ward, and it's a matter for her parents in any case what she does in her off time. In my opinion, certainly, although I know Emily feels differently."
"She's less trusting of the Family than you are, Colin," his friend replied, sounding like she was trying not to laugh for some reason. "That does seem to be changing quite fast, though, she seems to be coming around to the point that she views them as definite friends. More so than her attitude to most Parahumans."
"Possibly because she knows they're not actually Parahumans," he commented. "Technically."
She shrugged. "Maybe. But I can tell she actively respects Raptaur and Metis at least, even if she's still a bit paranoid about them in some ways. With any luck that will help her overcome her suspicions of Parahumans in general."
"Such an outcome would certainly be helpful," he muttered. They shared a look, then got back to work.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dinah looked at her mother, who was putting her phone away, then turned back to her task of inspecting the interior of the BBFO building. She looked at the computers a little enviously, those monitors were huge! Way bigger than her one at home. It would make playing games interesting.
The big table with a number of chairs around it on the other side of the room had a few papers scattered on it, half a dozen cans of drinks, and a couple of books. The chairs themselves looked really comfortable, and a lot more complicated than most chairs she was familiar with. Looking at Raptaur, then the nearest chair, she grinned, since it was blatantly obvious the huge creature couldn't really use it. They were presumably for friends and visitors.
Overall it looked like a fairly normal office as far as she could tell. Some posters on the walls were the only specifically Family-related things she could see, and that didn't prove anything. She'd like the one of Saurial in armor about to ruin someone's day in her own room, in fact. The hammer one was pretty cool too.
On the other hand, most normal offices didn't have four lizards standing in them, watching the visitors with interest. Dinah looked back at them. "Wow," she said quietly, making all of them smile.
"Thank you all for agreeing to this, ladies," Uncle Roy said. Dinah's mother was looking around as well, her gaze constantly returning to the reptilian forms with a slightly worried look, although that was diminishing with time.
"It's not a problem, Mayor," Saurial said earnestly. "Honestly, we like meeting people, and Danny explained that your niece was interested in us." She grinned for a moment and added, "And has good taste. Obviously, she's correct in who among us is the best."
Dinah giggled, then did it again when Saurial's sister and two cousins gave her identical dubious looks. "I'm still not convinced," Metis said darkly. Ianthe nudged her, making her turn to look, then roll her eyes.
"Let the little one have her moment of glory," Ianthe whispered, quite loudly. She winked at Dinah. "Being the runt of the family is hard."
Saurial waved a hand. "Ignore them, they're just jealous," she explained as Dinah snickered. "So, you know who we all are. Metis, the mouthy one, Ianthe, the sarcastic one, Raptaur, the scary one, and me, the cute one."
She posed, making Dinah and her mother both laugh. Uncle Roy was grinning and Mr Hebert simply shook his head then sat down at the table.
"Don't forget Kaiju, the quite big one," Metis put in.
"She isn't here, she can introduce herself if she turns up," Saurial replied.
"Fair enough."
"It's great to meet you all," Dinah exclaimed. She held out her hand, which Saurial took and carefully shook. "I've wanted to do that ever since you first arrived. You're really cool."
"See?" Saurial turned to her relatives. "Someone with common sense and observational abilities."
Raptaur reached out and patted her on the head. "Well done. I'm glad you're feeling validated."
"I am. Thank you." The pair shared a look, then turned back to Dinah who was laughing yet again. It was like some weird sort of stand up comedy routine with added teeth.
"So, what would you like to do, Dinah?" Saurial asked, waving them over to the table. "Here, have a seat and a drink. Anyone for coffee or tea? Or soup, for that matter, that thing makes quite a nice cup of it." She indicated the complicated coffee machine on the other side of the room with a thumb.
Dinah hopped into one of the chairs and leaned back, impressed at how comfortable it was. Bouncing up and down a couple of times she nodded in satisfaction. "Can I have some soup, please?" she asked politely.
"Sure. Chicken noodle or tomato?" the lizard-girl asked.
"Chicken noodle." Saurial nodded, looking around at the others, all of whom asked for coffee. She turned to her sister.
"Go do something useful," she said.
Raptaur inspected her, snorted, and wandered off, making Dinah snicker once more. Ianthe and Metis were grinning as they took up positions around the table. She watched how they used their tails as built in chairs and thought it was clever and useful. Tails were cool too.
"This is a really nice chair," she commented.
"Thanks," Saurial smiled. "I made them. And the table too. They're made mostly of EDM, so they're not going to break."
"EDM is that special material you coated the tanker with, isn't it?" Uncle Roy asked with interest.
"Yep. It's more or less indestructible under anything close to normal conditions," Saurial replied. "Useful stuff for all sorts of things. It's what we use for armor too, like in the New Wave costumes." She held out a hand in which a knife appeared, making Dinah stare. "Really good for cutting implements, or other tools too." The knife turned into a claw hammer, a crowbar, a wrench, and back into a knife, before turning into a ballpoint pen. The reptilian girl looked at it with her eyebrows raised, then handed it to Dinah. "Apparently I can make pens too."
The girl took it and looked closely at it, admiring the tiny gold logo on the top, then clicked it a couple of times. It felt heavy and slick in her grip. "Neat," she smiled.
"Keep it, there's an infinite number of those where that came from," Saurial chuckled. "The biggest problem with EDM is that it's almost frictionless, but we have a method to make the parts you want to hold onto grippy or otherwise you'd be dropping it all over the place." She looked at Mr Hebert, then back to Uncle Roy. "That would make the tools dangerous. We've made a few special things for the DWU so far, and we'll be making a lot more as time goes on."
"Actually, I'd like to talk to you about that at some point soon," Dinah's uncle said thoughtfully. "Body armor for the police and matters of that nature."
"We're happy to discuss it, Mayor," Raptaur said as she came back with a tray full of the requested drinks, handing them around. Dinah accepted her soup and tried it, finding it was really good. "Some time next week? We're a little busy right now."
"Sure, that would be fine," he smiled. "And call me Roy."
"Of course, Roy," she said, also propping herself up next to the table on her tail. "So, Dinah, what do you do when you're not in school?"
Dinah shrugged. "Play computer games, read a lot, go out with my friends sometimes," she answered. "Normal stuff." She didn't mention the Wards, of course. Raptaur looked closely at her, then nodded.
"I see. Do you like swimming?"
"Yes," she said, "But it's too cold now."
"Is it?" the lizard said. "I hadn't noticed."
She laughed, not surprised. "I'll have to wait until summer to swim in the sea, but I go to the pool sometimes."
"Haven't tried that yet," Raptaur replied with a thoughtful expression.
Uncle Roy looked at her, then Dinah's mother, who had started giggling. "Why do I suddenly have a feeling that things could become… awkward..." he muttered.
"No idea," the blue-black creature snickered.
"Yeah…" He sounded dubious, making the others laugh.
"We should probably leave the humans to swim in peace, cousin," Metis said. Raptaur looked mildly disappointed but eventually nodded.
"I guess so. Those pools aren't deep enough, anyway." She glanced at Uncle Roy. "Are they?"
"No more than twelve feet," he confirmed.
"Pity. That's pretty pathetic, actually."
"How deep do you go?" Dinah asked with interest.
They all exchanged a look. "Well, I guess it's not a secret," Saurial said. Raptaur nodded.
"All the way," she remarked. Uncle Roy gaped, then looked at Dinah's mother, then Mr Hebert, who didn't seem surprised.
"All… the way? To the bottom of the ocean?"
"Yes," Raptaur replied with a humorous look. "It's pretty dark down there, but mostly quite peaceful."
"The light isn't a problem, we can bring it with us," Ianthe added. They watched as spots and lines across her body lit up a pretty green color. Dinah clapped in wonder. "Not to mention our eyes are pretty good anyway."
"Good grief," Dinah's uncle mumbled. "So the bottom of the bay isn't a problem."
"No, that's only a few hundred feet at most," Metis said with a smile. "Nothing at all interesting, and it's a bit of a mess, frankly. Ships and other junk all over the place. When Kaiju gets done with it, though, it'll be pretty nice. She likes a tidy sea-bed."
"Who doesn't?" Saurial grinned. "We're pretty sure that will make the fish come back too. We've been thinking of setting up some sort of water cleaner to filter out the crud in the water, something like the system we made for the tanker draining job only bigger. The bay isn't too badly polluted compared to some places, but it's a lot worse than it should be."
"That would be good," Dinah said. All four reptiles nodded. Uncle Roy was looking very interested, she noticed.
"Could you make the beach better?" her mother asked. "Half the sand washed away in the last big storm." She looked like she was asking the question as a joke, but Saurial and Raptaur seemed to be thinking about it.
"Hmm. Interesting idea." They exchanged a glance, then the smaller lizard-person went on, "There's plenty of sand out in the bay. When we clear away the wrecks and other garbage, I bet Kaiju could push a lot of it back onto the beach and smooth it down."
"She should do it at night, then leave a long trail of footprints all down it," Dinah giggled, picturing the scene. "Without telling anyone."
Saurial laughed, her sister and cousins grinning widely. "Oh, I like you. Good sense of humor. That's not a bad idea at all."
"Director Piggot would sigh a lot," Uncle Roy said, looking like the thought didn't worry him.
"Probably," Raptaur nodded. "But I think she'd live with it."
"Not like there'd be a choice at that point," Metis snickered. "No one is going to complain about having a better beach."
"Believe me, you'll get people who complain about anything," Uncle Roy said ruefully. "I see it every day. But the city certainly wouldn't mind, anything to increase the tourist footfall is probably good, assuming no one gets hurt. And especially if it doesn't cost us anything."
"We'll have to see how things work out," Raptaur replied.
They sat and talked for a while, all of them finishing their drinks. Dinah asked a lot of questions, watched as Saurial and Raptaur had a mock battle with each other using swords, which was amazing, and learned all sorts of cool things about the Family.
Saurial made a weird little thing she called a hypercube, which made her eyes try to look around corners that weren't there. It also caused her mother to moan and look away, and Uncle Roy to suck in a breath, then close his eyes for a moment or two. Dinah found it weird beyond belief but thought their reactions were a bit over the top.
Eventually, after about an hour, Raptaur turned to her. "So, from what Danny said, you'd be open for a ride on my back?"
Dinah nodded rapidly. "Yes, please, I'd love it," she said, grinning wildly.
The large reptile looked at her mother and her uncle. "Are you both all right with that?"
"I certainly trust you to look after my niece, but it's Cheryl's call," Uncle Roy said, turning to his sister. "What do you think?"
Her mother looked at the huge lizard, then at Dinah. "I suppose it would be cruel to come all this way and not allow her to have some fun," she said with a mischievous look. Dinah rolled her eyes, her mother was definitely in a good mood if she was acting like this. "All right. Please try not to cause trouble."
"I'll be good," both Dinah and Raptaur said at the same time, making her laugh.
"All right, then. Come over here, Dinah," Raptaur said, getting up and moving to a clear spot. She dropped to all fours, then studied Dinah closely, before looking over her shoulder. She was suddenly wearing her armor, which appeared from nowhere just like the tools and things Saurial had been making, the part over her lower back forming into a saddle. She nodded in satisfaction as Dinah stared in wonder. "That should do it. Now, for safety's sake, we'll give you a helmet, and you'll probably want some gloves too. Here, try these on." She held out a pair of gloves that looked like they were made of leather and were just the right size.
Taking them from her, Dinah pulled one on, finding it fitted perfectly. She held her hand up and admired it, then put the other one on too. "These are really nice," she said. "Look, Mom!"
Her mother smiled at her enthusiasm. "They do suit you, Dinah."
"Try this helmet," Raptaur said, handing her something that looked a little like a motorcycle helmet, only with the visor permanently down. She accepted it, tapped the transparent face-plate curiously, then pulled it down over her head. Her mother came over and adjusted her hair under it. Eventually both were satisfied.
"Not bad," Metis commented. "You look the part. Take that safety jacket off, you won't need it, and zip your coat up, it's fairly cool today and it'll be a lot colder when she's going flat out." Dinah did so, handing the bright orange over-garment to Metis who folded it neatly and put it on the table.
"Great. You're all set." Raptaur looked pleased.
"Hold on, let me get a photo," Dinah's mother said quickly. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Of course not, help yourself," Ianthe replied. Pulling her camera out of her bag, Dinah's mom took a couple of shots of the pair standing next to each other. Dinah looked up at the vastly larger cape and grinned, those pictures would look ridiculous. Even when she was on four legs, Raptaur was nearly twice her height, and her hands were each large enough to use Dinah's head for a stress ball. She probably outweighed the girl by about twenty to one or more. Oddly enough, the thought didn't worry her at all, since she was certain they were all good people. Even her mother had lost her residual nervousness and seemed in a very good mood.
"Let's get you up there," Saurial said, coming over to them. She picked Dinah up and settled her on her sister's back, the older Alcott taking photos as she did this. Shortly the girl was firmly strapped in place in the saddle.
"This is so cool," she laughed, looking down on everyone else. There was no way she could have fallen off even if she'd tried, not that she was about to.
"Grab those handles there and lean forward," Saurial instructed, pointing. Dinah followed the directions. "Good. When she's climbing, or going fast, you'll probably want to do that, it'll be more comfortable. OK?"
"Yep," she chirped.
Mr Hebert walked over and hit the switch to open the main door. "We'll be back in a while," Raptaur said to Uncle Roy and his sister. "I'll take her around the docks, through the commercial district, down the boardwalk area, and back along the freeway. We might stop for a snack."
Both of them nodded, watching as she walked out of the building, Dinah feeling incredibly powerful muscles working under the armor and still with a grin fixed on her face. She wasn't certain it would go away any time soon.
The others followed to the edge of the larger open area. "Ready, Dinah?" Raptaur rumbled, the vibrations of her voice felt as well as heard. Dinah grabbed the handles and flattened herself across the lizard's back.
"Yes," she squeaked, suddenly nervous.
"Don't worry, I think you'll love this," her mount chuckled. She started walking, broke into a trot, then accelerated smoothly to a fast run. Dinah screamed with glee and held on.
"Wheeeee!"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Listening to the Doppler effect of her daughter's yell fading away across the vast yard, Cheryl watched, half amused and half worried. Raptaur was already moving faster than they'd been able to drive here, and speeding up. When she reached the fence she simply jumped it as if it hadn't been there, ran straight up the side of the nearest warehouse, and disappeared into the evening over the roof. A very faint cry of joy came back on the wind.
"She seems happy," Ianthe commented wryly from beside her.
Looking left and up at the large form, Cheryl nodded. "I'd say so. Thank you all for doing this, it's very good of you. I wasn't expecting you to put so much time and effort into it."
The violet reptile smiled. "Honestly, it's not a problem. We had some spare time, the girl is having fun, and it's nice to help out friends."
"I'm going to have to go and do some other stuff," Saurial put in from her other side, "But I'll be back in a while, probably before they come back. Danny, why don't you show them around some more." She turned to the DWU man. "Maybe Roy would like to meet Vectura."
"Vectura?" her brother asked curiously. "Who's that?"
Danny studied Saurial, who was smiling slightly, then shook his head. "A new hire that joined us a little while ago," he said. "Before all that trouble with the Merchants. She's been keeping her head down for now, until all the other problems were sorted out."
Roy looked even more curious.
"She's a Tinker," Danny explained. Both Roy and Cheryl nodded, understanding, and exchanging a glance. "We're going to introduce her to the PRT next week, officially, you see. She's interested in power testing and that sort of thing. But with the Merchant raid and so on we had our hands full."
"What's her specialty?" Roy asked. Cheryl was slightly confused, which he noticed. After a quick explanation about Tinkers, she nodded.
"Basically, more or less anything to do with transportation," Saurial said.
"What, cars, trucks, that sort of thing, like Squealer was?"
"Nothing so limited," Metis chuckled. "She's got bigger ideas." Looking at Danny, she added, "I have to go as well but I'll be back soon."
"OK. I'll see you both later."
They watched as both Family members headed off, Metis going towards the bay while Saurial waved to them, then ran towards the gate and disappeared around the corner. Cheryl heard a faint splash. "Did Metis just jump into the bay?" she asked in shock.
"She did," Danny replied. "They do that. Come on, I'll introduce you to Vectura. Ianthe, go and check if she's in her workshop, will you, please?"
"Sure, Danny," the remaining reptile smiled, turning and trotting off. They followed more slowly.
"How many Parahumans do you have, Danny?" Roy asked in a sort of bemused tone.
"You know I can't actually tell you that, Roy," the other man replied calmly. "The rules apply if they don't want to be known publicly."
"Of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
"Don't worry, I understand." Danny didn't seem upset. "Let's say we have one and leave it at that for the moment."
"What about the Family?" Cheryl asked him.
"They're a… special case," he said, glancing at her, then her brother, who nodded slowly. "In almost every category you can think of. They're DWU members but we can't lay claim to them, they're more associates than anything else. Very close ones, though."
"How odd."
He grinned. "That's a word that comes up a lot these days."
Giggling, she nodded, knowing how true that was. Wondering how her daughter was getting on, she followed as he led them to a meeting with yet another interesting new person.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Colin looked up as the alarm beeped again. Opening the relevant window he inspected the log.
"Now what?"
He glanced at Dragon. "She's moving at nearly sixty miles an hour in a dead straight line from the DWU facility towards the Boardwalk. Over the buildings, not around them."
His friend snickered. "So she's riding Raptaur?"
"Most likely," he agreed, closing the window again. What the girl did in her spare time was no business of his, and he was satisfied she was about as safe as anyone could be.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
'This is the best thing I've ever done,' Dinah told herself, holding on like mad as Raptaur pounded along the tops of the buildings, clearing entire streets in one jump and making it look trivial. She had no idea how fast they were moving aside from it being at least as quick as most cars went, the sound of the wind moving past them almost a roar. Thankful for the helmet and gloves, she looked around with great interest, seeing the lights of the city shoot past. The sun had set a little while ago and it was now definitely getting a little dark, which didn't seem to impede her mount in the slightest.
They'd probably covered a couple of miles by now, since they were reaching the edge of the dock area and entering the commercial district, taller buildings popping up here and there and a lot more lights on. They flashed past a huge billboard advertising a car dealership in the blink of an eye, hurdled a two-lane street, and landed on the roof of the building on the other side. Slowing, Raptaur looked over her shoulder with a smile. "How is it so far?" she asked.
"Fantastic!" Dinah cackled, her face aching from the grin she had on. "So much fun! I wish I could do this."
"It's certainly fun, I have to admit," the lizard-woman nodded. "I'm going to head over that way," she went on, pointing, "And go up the side of the Medhall building. It's the tallest one in the city and you get a good view from the top."
"OK," Dinah replied, pleased and excited. Raptaur looked forward again and accelerated hard, sweeping in a turn to take her in the correct direction.
When they were just about to clear the main road, she called "Hold on tight," over her shoulder, then flung herself at the sheer face of the skyscraper. Dinah yipped a little as she contacted it, converting the horizontal movement into an upwards dash that left her feeling heavier than normal. Holding onto the grips like grim death the girl watched the top of the building get closer at a ridiculously high speed. Risking a look over her shoulder she swallowed as the ground went away equally quickly.
This made her close her eyes for a moment, then resolutely look forward again. She was in safe hands, she was completely sure of that.
98.77% sure, anyway.
Seconds later they topped the climb and landed on the flat roof, gravel crunching under Raptaur's clawed feet. She walked slowly to the edge nearest the water as her rider let go of the hand-grips and flexed her aching hands. "That's the DWU yard over there," the reptilian cape said, pointing to the side. Following her finger, Dinah nodded. It was brightly lit, an island of light in a largely dark area, only a few streetlights working. "Your uncle's house is over that way a few miles." Her mount indicated a different direction, across the bay. "And the Rig always looks pretty impressive at night, especially from high up."
They studied the glittering bluish dome over the well-lit spindly structure of the re-purposed oil rig for a moment. "It really does look nice," she responded.
"There's an aircraft coming in, look," Raptaur said, pointing up. Dinah looked and spotted a blinking light, red and green steady ones on either side, slowing down and curving towards the Protectorate base. As they watched it hovered over the dome, which blinked out for a moment to let it in, then came back. The aircraft settled down onto the top deck of the structure. Very faintly, Dinah could just make out a whine of turbines slowing down when she listened carefully.
Up here, the sounds of the city below were muted although still audible, thousands of people going about their business combining with vehicles and other things into a dull drone, broken by occasional louder and more recognizable sounds. The wind was nearly as loud, humming through the wires supporting the fifty foot antenna sticking above them. A faint bang made her look, and Raptaur as well, the cape she was sitting on tensing for a moment then relaxing again.
"Gunshot. Somewhere over next to the docks. Probably one of the left over Merchants." She cocked her head for a moment, listening carefully. Dinah did the same but couldn't hear anything. "Saurial got him."
"You have really good hearing," Dinah said admiringly.
Raptaur chuckled. "Yep."
"Thanks for doing this," she added, quietly. "It's really amazing and I love it."
"You're welcome, Dinah," the cape replied, also quietly. They just looked around for a few minutes. "OK, let's go back down and push on, shall we?" she said in the end. Dinah swallowed again, looking down. The return ride was going to be interesting...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Victor twitched, then looked out the window. The source of the scream he heard went past in a downwards direction very quickly, but he knew who it was.
"Fucking lizards," he grumbled, turning back to his computer. "Max had the right idea. I wish I was skiing."
Sometimes being a super villain was simply irritating, especially around these parts. At least no one was expecting him to go out and fight the damn reptiles, so if they wanted to give people rides around the place, that was their business. He just wished they'd pick a different building to run up and down. It was getting annoying.
"Which one is that?" Dragon asked from where she was checking the new portal generator parts.
"Dinah Alcott. Prospect. Her subdermal tracker just went offline."
"Oh. Fault, or deliberate?" His friend came over to watch as he brought up the tracker log and quickly scanned it.
"Not a fault, the diagnostics show it was fully functional with no reported errors moments ago..." He put the location up on the map, showing the girl's movements for the last half hour. Then he relaxed slightly.
"She's at the DWU, the last reading was immediately outside the BBFO office," he said, indicating the breadcrumb track overlaid on the map of the city. Zooming in, he could see that the girl had traveled down what he recognized as the accepted safest way in and out of the docks, at a speed consistent with a vehicle, paused at the gate, then stopped for a while outside the admin building. After that the speed dropped to a walking pace until she vanished from the log.
"The transmitting frequency of the beacon is outside the one that the repeater system I recommended handles, which would explain why it dropped off when she went into an EDM shielded space. But I'd better check, even so."
Picking up his PRT phone, he scrolled through the contacts to find the girl's mother's number, then called it. When she answered, he said, "Mrs Alcott, this is Armsmaster. I was just checking that nothing is amiss, since your daughter's tracking unit went offline approximately three minutes ago. You are at the BBFO office for some reason?"
"Oh, hello," the woman said, not saying his name as he'd drilled into her when they'd discussed the tracker. "Yes, everything is fine. I may have a cup of tea, in fact." He relaxed fully as she said the non-duress code phrase. "We're visiting the Family with my brother."
"Understood. I was momentarily concerned when the tracker vanished, but that's because the building you're in is heavily shielded. Thank you. Please enjoy your visit, the Family are very interesting."
"We've already noticed," she chuckled. "Thanks for your concern, I'm sorry to have worried you. We didn't think about that."
"There was no reason for you to do so, the matter is of technical interest but not the sort of thing most people would know about. In that case, I'll get back to work."
"Good-bye," she replied, hanging up. He put his phone down, then made a note in the log, before closing the window.
"False alarm, thankfully."
"Why are they at the DWU?" Dragon asked curiously.
"Apparently a social visit with the Mayor. Nothing to be concerned about." He looked at her. "I expect the Director might think otherwise, but Dinah is not yet an active Ward, and it's a matter for her parents in any case what she does in her off time. In my opinion, certainly, although I know Emily feels differently."
"She's less trusting of the Family than you are, Colin," his friend replied, sounding like she was trying not to laugh for some reason. "That does seem to be changing quite fast, though, she seems to be coming around to the point that she views them as definite friends. More so than her attitude to most Parahumans."
"Possibly because she knows they're not actually Parahumans," he commented. "Technically."
She shrugged. "Maybe. But I can tell she actively respects Raptaur and Metis at least, even if she's still a bit paranoid about them in some ways. With any luck that will help her overcome her suspicions of Parahumans in general."
"Such an outcome would certainly be helpful," he muttered. They shared a look, then got back to work.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dinah looked at her mother, who was putting her phone away, then turned back to her task of inspecting the interior of the BBFO building. She looked at the computers a little enviously, those monitors were huge! Way bigger than her one at home. It would make playing games interesting.
The big table with a number of chairs around it on the other side of the room had a few papers scattered on it, half a dozen cans of drinks, and a couple of books. The chairs themselves looked really comfortable, and a lot more complicated than most chairs she was familiar with. Looking at Raptaur, then the nearest chair, she grinned, since it was blatantly obvious the huge creature couldn't really use it. They were presumably for friends and visitors.
Overall it looked like a fairly normal office as far as she could tell. Some posters on the walls were the only specifically Family-related things she could see, and that didn't prove anything. She'd like the one of Saurial in armor about to ruin someone's day in her own room, in fact. The hammer one was pretty cool too.
On the other hand, most normal offices didn't have four lizards standing in them, watching the visitors with interest. Dinah looked back at them. "Wow," she said quietly, making all of them smile.
"Thank you all for agreeing to this, ladies," Uncle Roy said. Dinah's mother was looking around as well, her gaze constantly returning to the reptilian forms with a slightly worried look, although that was diminishing with time.
"It's not a problem, Mayor," Saurial said earnestly. "Honestly, we like meeting people, and Danny explained that your niece was interested in us." She grinned for a moment and added, "And has good taste. Obviously, she's correct in who among us is the best."
Dinah giggled, then did it again when Saurial's sister and two cousins gave her identical dubious looks. "I'm still not convinced," Metis said darkly. Ianthe nudged her, making her turn to look, then roll her eyes.
"Let the little one have her moment of glory," Ianthe whispered, quite loudly. She winked at Dinah. "Being the runt of the family is hard."
Saurial waved a hand. "Ignore them, they're just jealous," she explained as Dinah snickered. "So, you know who we all are. Metis, the mouthy one, Ianthe, the sarcastic one, Raptaur, the scary one, and me, the cute one."
She posed, making Dinah and her mother both laugh. Uncle Roy was grinning and Mr Hebert simply shook his head then sat down at the table.
"Don't forget Kaiju, the quite big one," Metis put in.
"She isn't here, she can introduce herself if she turns up," Saurial replied.
"Fair enough."
"It's great to meet you all," Dinah exclaimed. She held out her hand, which Saurial took and carefully shook. "I've wanted to do that ever since you first arrived. You're really cool."
"See?" Saurial turned to her relatives. "Someone with common sense and observational abilities."
Raptaur reached out and patted her on the head. "Well done. I'm glad you're feeling validated."
"I am. Thank you." The pair shared a look, then turned back to Dinah who was laughing yet again. It was like some weird sort of stand up comedy routine with added teeth.
"So, what would you like to do, Dinah?" Saurial asked, waving them over to the table. "Here, have a seat and a drink. Anyone for coffee or tea? Or soup, for that matter, that thing makes quite a nice cup of it." She indicated the complicated coffee machine on the other side of the room with a thumb.
Dinah hopped into one of the chairs and leaned back, impressed at how comfortable it was. Bouncing up and down a couple of times she nodded in satisfaction. "Can I have some soup, please?" she asked politely.
"Sure. Chicken noodle or tomato?" the lizard-girl asked.
"Chicken noodle." Saurial nodded, looking around at the others, all of whom asked for coffee. She turned to her sister.
"Go do something useful," she said.
Raptaur inspected her, snorted, and wandered off, making Dinah snicker once more. Ianthe and Metis were grinning as they took up positions around the table. She watched how they used their tails as built in chairs and thought it was clever and useful. Tails were cool too.
"This is a really nice chair," she commented.
"Thanks," Saurial smiled. "I made them. And the table too. They're made mostly of EDM, so they're not going to break."
"EDM is that special material you coated the tanker with, isn't it?" Uncle Roy asked with interest.
"Yep. It's more or less indestructible under anything close to normal conditions," Saurial replied. "Useful stuff for all sorts of things. It's what we use for armor too, like in the New Wave costumes." She held out a hand in which a knife appeared, making Dinah stare. "Really good for cutting implements, or other tools too." The knife turned into a claw hammer, a crowbar, a wrench, and back into a knife, before turning into a ballpoint pen. The reptilian girl looked at it with her eyebrows raised, then handed it to Dinah. "Apparently I can make pens too."
The girl took it and looked closely at it, admiring the tiny gold logo on the top, then clicked it a couple of times. It felt heavy and slick in her grip. "Neat," she smiled.
"Keep it, there's an infinite number of those where that came from," Saurial chuckled. "The biggest problem with EDM is that it's almost frictionless, but we have a method to make the parts you want to hold onto grippy or otherwise you'd be dropping it all over the place." She looked at Mr Hebert, then back to Uncle Roy. "That would make the tools dangerous. We've made a few special things for the DWU so far, and we'll be making a lot more as time goes on."
"Actually, I'd like to talk to you about that at some point soon," Dinah's uncle said thoughtfully. "Body armor for the police and matters of that nature."
"We're happy to discuss it, Mayor," Raptaur said as she came back with a tray full of the requested drinks, handing them around. Dinah accepted her soup and tried it, finding it was really good. "Some time next week? We're a little busy right now."
"Sure, that would be fine," he smiled. "And call me Roy."
"Of course, Roy," she said, also propping herself up next to the table on her tail. "So, Dinah, what do you do when you're not in school?"
Dinah shrugged. "Play computer games, read a lot, go out with my friends sometimes," she answered. "Normal stuff." She didn't mention the Wards, of course. Raptaur looked closely at her, then nodded.
"I see. Do you like swimming?"
"Yes," she said, "But it's too cold now."
"Is it?" the lizard said. "I hadn't noticed."
She laughed, not surprised. "I'll have to wait until summer to swim in the sea, but I go to the pool sometimes."
"Haven't tried that yet," Raptaur replied with a thoughtful expression.
Uncle Roy looked at her, then Dinah's mother, who had started giggling. "Why do I suddenly have a feeling that things could become… awkward..." he muttered.
"No idea," the blue-black creature snickered.
"Yeah…" He sounded dubious, making the others laugh.
"We should probably leave the humans to swim in peace, cousin," Metis said. Raptaur looked mildly disappointed but eventually nodded.
"I guess so. Those pools aren't deep enough, anyway." She glanced at Uncle Roy. "Are they?"
"No more than twelve feet," he confirmed.
"Pity. That's pretty pathetic, actually."
"How deep do you go?" Dinah asked with interest.
They all exchanged a look. "Well, I guess it's not a secret," Saurial said. Raptaur nodded.
"All the way," she remarked. Uncle Roy gaped, then looked at Dinah's mother, then Mr Hebert, who didn't seem surprised.
"All… the way? To the bottom of the ocean?"
"Yes," Raptaur replied with a humorous look. "It's pretty dark down there, but mostly quite peaceful."
"The light isn't a problem, we can bring it with us," Ianthe added. They watched as spots and lines across her body lit up a pretty green color. Dinah clapped in wonder. "Not to mention our eyes are pretty good anyway."
"Good grief," Dinah's uncle mumbled. "So the bottom of the bay isn't a problem."
"No, that's only a few hundred feet at most," Metis said with a smile. "Nothing at all interesting, and it's a bit of a mess, frankly. Ships and other junk all over the place. When Kaiju gets done with it, though, it'll be pretty nice. She likes a tidy sea-bed."
"Who doesn't?" Saurial grinned. "We're pretty sure that will make the fish come back too. We've been thinking of setting up some sort of water cleaner to filter out the crud in the water, something like the system we made for the tanker draining job only bigger. The bay isn't too badly polluted compared to some places, but it's a lot worse than it should be."
"That would be good," Dinah said. All four reptiles nodded. Uncle Roy was looking very interested, she noticed.
"Could you make the beach better?" her mother asked. "Half the sand washed away in the last big storm." She looked like she was asking the question as a joke, but Saurial and Raptaur seemed to be thinking about it.
"Hmm. Interesting idea." They exchanged a glance, then the smaller lizard-person went on, "There's plenty of sand out in the bay. When we clear away the wrecks and other garbage, I bet Kaiju could push a lot of it back onto the beach and smooth it down."
"She should do it at night, then leave a long trail of footprints all down it," Dinah giggled, picturing the scene. "Without telling anyone."
Saurial laughed, her sister and cousins grinning widely. "Oh, I like you. Good sense of humor. That's not a bad idea at all."
"Director Piggot would sigh a lot," Uncle Roy said, looking like the thought didn't worry him.
"Probably," Raptaur nodded. "But I think she'd live with it."
"Not like there'd be a choice at that point," Metis snickered. "No one is going to complain about having a better beach."
"Believe me, you'll get people who complain about anything," Uncle Roy said ruefully. "I see it every day. But the city certainly wouldn't mind, anything to increase the tourist footfall is probably good, assuming no one gets hurt. And especially if it doesn't cost us anything."
"We'll have to see how things work out," Raptaur replied.
They sat and talked for a while, all of them finishing their drinks. Dinah asked a lot of questions, watched as Saurial and Raptaur had a mock battle with each other using swords, which was amazing, and learned all sorts of cool things about the Family.
Saurial made a weird little thing she called a hypercube, which made her eyes try to look around corners that weren't there. It also caused her mother to moan and look away, and Uncle Roy to suck in a breath, then close his eyes for a moment or two. Dinah found it weird beyond belief but thought their reactions were a bit over the top.
Eventually, after about an hour, Raptaur turned to her. "So, from what Danny said, you'd be open for a ride on my back?"
Dinah nodded rapidly. "Yes, please, I'd love it," she said, grinning wildly.
The large reptile looked at her mother and her uncle. "Are you both all right with that?"
"I certainly trust you to look after my niece, but it's Cheryl's call," Uncle Roy said, turning to his sister. "What do you think?"
Her mother looked at the huge lizard, then at Dinah. "I suppose it would be cruel to come all this way and not allow her to have some fun," she said with a mischievous look. Dinah rolled her eyes, her mother was definitely in a good mood if she was acting like this. "All right. Please try not to cause trouble."
"I'll be good," both Dinah and Raptaur said at the same time, making her laugh.
"All right, then. Come over here, Dinah," Raptaur said, getting up and moving to a clear spot. She dropped to all fours, then studied Dinah closely, before looking over her shoulder. She was suddenly wearing her armor, which appeared from nowhere just like the tools and things Saurial had been making, the part over her lower back forming into a saddle. She nodded in satisfaction as Dinah stared in wonder. "That should do it. Now, for safety's sake, we'll give you a helmet, and you'll probably want some gloves too. Here, try these on." She held out a pair of gloves that looked like they were made of leather and were just the right size.
Taking them from her, Dinah pulled one on, finding it fitted perfectly. She held her hand up and admired it, then put the other one on too. "These are really nice," she said. "Look, Mom!"
Her mother smiled at her enthusiasm. "They do suit you, Dinah."
"Try this helmet," Raptaur said, handing her something that looked a little like a motorcycle helmet, only with the visor permanently down. She accepted it, tapped the transparent face-plate curiously, then pulled it down over her head. Her mother came over and adjusted her hair under it. Eventually both were satisfied.
"Not bad," Metis commented. "You look the part. Take that safety jacket off, you won't need it, and zip your coat up, it's fairly cool today and it'll be a lot colder when she's going flat out." Dinah did so, handing the bright orange over-garment to Metis who folded it neatly and put it on the table.
"Great. You're all set." Raptaur looked pleased.
"Hold on, let me get a photo," Dinah's mother said quickly. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Of course not, help yourself," Ianthe replied. Pulling her camera out of her bag, Dinah's mom took a couple of shots of the pair standing next to each other. Dinah looked up at the vastly larger cape and grinned, those pictures would look ridiculous. Even when she was on four legs, Raptaur was nearly twice her height, and her hands were each large enough to use Dinah's head for a stress ball. She probably outweighed the girl by about twenty to one or more. Oddly enough, the thought didn't worry her at all, since she was certain they were all good people. Even her mother had lost her residual nervousness and seemed in a very good mood.
"Let's get you up there," Saurial said, coming over to them. She picked Dinah up and settled her on her sister's back, the older Alcott taking photos as she did this. Shortly the girl was firmly strapped in place in the saddle.
"This is so cool," she laughed, looking down on everyone else. There was no way she could have fallen off even if she'd tried, not that she was about to.
"Grab those handles there and lean forward," Saurial instructed, pointing. Dinah followed the directions. "Good. When she's climbing, or going fast, you'll probably want to do that, it'll be more comfortable. OK?"
"Yep," she chirped.
Mr Hebert walked over and hit the switch to open the main door. "We'll be back in a while," Raptaur said to Uncle Roy and his sister. "I'll take her around the docks, through the commercial district, down the boardwalk area, and back along the freeway. We might stop for a snack."
Both of them nodded, watching as she walked out of the building, Dinah feeling incredibly powerful muscles working under the armor and still with a grin fixed on her face. She wasn't certain it would go away any time soon.
The others followed to the edge of the larger open area. "Ready, Dinah?" Raptaur rumbled, the vibrations of her voice felt as well as heard. Dinah grabbed the handles and flattened herself across the lizard's back.
"Yes," she squeaked, suddenly nervous.
"Don't worry, I think you'll love this," her mount chuckled. She started walking, broke into a trot, then accelerated smoothly to a fast run. Dinah screamed with glee and held on.
"Wheeeee!"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Listening to the Doppler effect of her daughter's yell fading away across the vast yard, Cheryl watched, half amused and half worried. Raptaur was already moving faster than they'd been able to drive here, and speeding up. When she reached the fence she simply jumped it as if it hadn't been there, ran straight up the side of the nearest warehouse, and disappeared into the evening over the roof. A very faint cry of joy came back on the wind.
"She seems happy," Ianthe commented wryly from beside her.
Looking left and up at the large form, Cheryl nodded. "I'd say so. Thank you all for doing this, it's very good of you. I wasn't expecting you to put so much time and effort into it."
The violet reptile smiled. "Honestly, it's not a problem. We had some spare time, the girl is having fun, and it's nice to help out friends."
"I'm going to have to go and do some other stuff," Saurial put in from her other side, "But I'll be back in a while, probably before they come back. Danny, why don't you show them around some more." She turned to the DWU man. "Maybe Roy would like to meet Vectura."
"Vectura?" her brother asked curiously. "Who's that?"
Danny studied Saurial, who was smiling slightly, then shook his head. "A new hire that joined us a little while ago," he said. "Before all that trouble with the Merchants. She's been keeping her head down for now, until all the other problems were sorted out."
Roy looked even more curious.
"She's a Tinker," Danny explained. Both Roy and Cheryl nodded, understanding, and exchanging a glance. "We're going to introduce her to the PRT next week, officially, you see. She's interested in power testing and that sort of thing. But with the Merchant raid and so on we had our hands full."
"What's her specialty?" Roy asked. Cheryl was slightly confused, which he noticed. After a quick explanation about Tinkers, she nodded.
"Basically, more or less anything to do with transportation," Saurial said.
"What, cars, trucks, that sort of thing, like Squealer was?"
"Nothing so limited," Metis chuckled. "She's got bigger ideas." Looking at Danny, she added, "I have to go as well but I'll be back soon."
"OK. I'll see you both later."
They watched as both Family members headed off, Metis going towards the bay while Saurial waved to them, then ran towards the gate and disappeared around the corner. Cheryl heard a faint splash. "Did Metis just jump into the bay?" she asked in shock.
"She did," Danny replied. "They do that. Come on, I'll introduce you to Vectura. Ianthe, go and check if she's in her workshop, will you, please?"
"Sure, Danny," the remaining reptile smiled, turning and trotting off. They followed more slowly.
"How many Parahumans do you have, Danny?" Roy asked in a sort of bemused tone.
"You know I can't actually tell you that, Roy," the other man replied calmly. "The rules apply if they don't want to be known publicly."
"Of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
"Don't worry, I understand." Danny didn't seem upset. "Let's say we have one and leave it at that for the moment."
"What about the Family?" Cheryl asked him.
"They're a… special case," he said, glancing at her, then her brother, who nodded slowly. "In almost every category you can think of. They're DWU members but we can't lay claim to them, they're more associates than anything else. Very close ones, though."
"How odd."
He grinned. "That's a word that comes up a lot these days."
Giggling, she nodded, knowing how true that was. Wondering how her daughter was getting on, she followed as he led them to a meeting with yet another interesting new person.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Colin looked up as the alarm beeped again. Opening the relevant window he inspected the log.
"Now what?"
He glanced at Dragon. "She's moving at nearly sixty miles an hour in a dead straight line from the DWU facility towards the Boardwalk. Over the buildings, not around them."
His friend snickered. "So she's riding Raptaur?"
"Most likely," he agreed, closing the window again. What the girl did in her spare time was no business of his, and he was satisfied she was about as safe as anyone could be.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
'This is the best thing I've ever done,' Dinah told herself, holding on like mad as Raptaur pounded along the tops of the buildings, clearing entire streets in one jump and making it look trivial. She had no idea how fast they were moving aside from it being at least as quick as most cars went, the sound of the wind moving past them almost a roar. Thankful for the helmet and gloves, she looked around with great interest, seeing the lights of the city shoot past. The sun had set a little while ago and it was now definitely getting a little dark, which didn't seem to impede her mount in the slightest.
They'd probably covered a couple of miles by now, since they were reaching the edge of the dock area and entering the commercial district, taller buildings popping up here and there and a lot more lights on. They flashed past a huge billboard advertising a car dealership in the blink of an eye, hurdled a two-lane street, and landed on the roof of the building on the other side. Slowing, Raptaur looked over her shoulder with a smile. "How is it so far?" she asked.
"Fantastic!" Dinah cackled, her face aching from the grin she had on. "So much fun! I wish I could do this."
"It's certainly fun, I have to admit," the lizard-woman nodded. "I'm going to head over that way," she went on, pointing, "And go up the side of the Medhall building. It's the tallest one in the city and you get a good view from the top."
"OK," Dinah replied, pleased and excited. Raptaur looked forward again and accelerated hard, sweeping in a turn to take her in the correct direction.
When they were just about to clear the main road, she called "Hold on tight," over her shoulder, then flung herself at the sheer face of the skyscraper. Dinah yipped a little as she contacted it, converting the horizontal movement into an upwards dash that left her feeling heavier than normal. Holding onto the grips like grim death the girl watched the top of the building get closer at a ridiculously high speed. Risking a look over her shoulder she swallowed as the ground went away equally quickly.
This made her close her eyes for a moment, then resolutely look forward again. She was in safe hands, she was completely sure of that.
98.77% sure, anyway.
Seconds later they topped the climb and landed on the flat roof, gravel crunching under Raptaur's clawed feet. She walked slowly to the edge nearest the water as her rider let go of the hand-grips and flexed her aching hands. "That's the DWU yard over there," the reptilian cape said, pointing to the side. Following her finger, Dinah nodded. It was brightly lit, an island of light in a largely dark area, only a few streetlights working. "Your uncle's house is over that way a few miles." Her mount indicated a different direction, across the bay. "And the Rig always looks pretty impressive at night, especially from high up."
They studied the glittering bluish dome over the well-lit spindly structure of the re-purposed oil rig for a moment. "It really does look nice," she responded.
"There's an aircraft coming in, look," Raptaur said, pointing up. Dinah looked and spotted a blinking light, red and green steady ones on either side, slowing down and curving towards the Protectorate base. As they watched it hovered over the dome, which blinked out for a moment to let it in, then came back. The aircraft settled down onto the top deck of the structure. Very faintly, Dinah could just make out a whine of turbines slowing down when she listened carefully.
Up here, the sounds of the city below were muted although still audible, thousands of people going about their business combining with vehicles and other things into a dull drone, broken by occasional louder and more recognizable sounds. The wind was nearly as loud, humming through the wires supporting the fifty foot antenna sticking above them. A faint bang made her look, and Raptaur as well, the cape she was sitting on tensing for a moment then relaxing again.
"Gunshot. Somewhere over next to the docks. Probably one of the left over Merchants." She cocked her head for a moment, listening carefully. Dinah did the same but couldn't hear anything. "Saurial got him."
"You have really good hearing," Dinah said admiringly.
Raptaur chuckled. "Yep."
"Thanks for doing this," she added, quietly. "It's really amazing and I love it."
"You're welcome, Dinah," the cape replied, also quietly. They just looked around for a few minutes. "OK, let's go back down and push on, shall we?" she said in the end. Dinah swallowed again, looking down. The return ride was going to be interesting...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Victor twitched, then looked out the window. The source of the scream he heard went past in a downwards direction very quickly, but he knew who it was.
"Fucking lizards," he grumbled, turning back to his computer. "Max had the right idea. I wish I was skiing."
Sometimes being a super villain was simply irritating, especially around these parts. At least no one was expecting him to go out and fight the damn reptiles, so if they wanted to give people rides around the place, that was their business. He just wished they'd pick a different building to run up and down. It was getting annoying.
Last edited:
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
I chapter at you again!
Flawless Victory!
Flawless Victory!
188. Dinah and Taylor
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
"Holy shit." Dinah gasped for breath. "Holy shit. That was..." She ran out of words to describe the experience of running down the side of a two hundred foot or better sheer drop. Slumping in the saddle as Raptaur halted and looked back at her, she breathed heavily for a while.
"You OK?" The deep voice sounded concerned.
"I'll be OK in a minute," she replied weakly. She shook her head in wonder. "Wow."
"It's a little intense the first time," her companion smiled.
She nodded, unable to think of anything else to say.
"Let's stop for a break, to let you recover. I know a good place, I'll keep the speed down until we get there."
"Thank you," Dinah mumbled, feeling her heart gradually slow from 'AHHH! GOING TO DIE!!' mode to merely quite fast.
The reptile trotted at a fast walk across the next roof, hurdled the street, and slowly sped up to about twice that speed for the next few buildings. When Dinah looked up, they were somewhere about halfway between the Medhall building and the Boardwalk, the sea visible through the gaps in the buildings. Raptaur was apparently heading for a large low one with a flat roof. As they approached, Dinah spotted someone coming out of a roof access door carrying a paper bag.
Landing on the roof, they approached the person, who was waiting for them. Dinah was a little surprised, although not as much as she might have been, to see it was Taylor. "Hello, Dinah," the older girl said as they stopped next to her. Raptaur squatted down on all fours, like a huge cat. "I got you a snack," Taylor added, opening the bag and pulling out a burger and small fries.
"Thanks," Dinah replied, pulling her helmet off. Raptaur reached around and took it from her, not looking even slightly surprised about the Hebert girl being there. It was obviously a prearranged meeting. Moments later, Metis appeared over the edge of the roof and joined them.
Looking around a little nervously, Dinah smiled uncertainly.
"Don't worry, no one is going to hurt you, I promise," Raptaur reassured her. She took the food from Taylor and twisted her torso around to hand it to Dinah. "We just had a couple of questions. About last night."
"She told you," Dinah noted, as she accepted the burger and fries. Taylor was unpacking several more, one of which she kept, the other four going two each to both the others. They were the huge ones from Fugly's, the younger girl noticed.
"I did," Taylor replied, leaning casually on Raptaur's side and eating some fries. "You worked something out. About me, or connected to me, and probably about the Family. We were just wondering what it was, whether it's something we need to get prepared to deal with, and if you can tell us, how you did it." She ate some more of the actually really tasty fries, watching Dinah's face. "You don't need to tell us that last bit if you don't want to, but we are curious. And we promise no one outside the Family will learn anything you say. No one can hear us here either."
Nibbling a fry of her own, Dinah thought, looking around at them. None of them seemed mad, just as they said, curious with a hint of concern. She asked herself a question. 'Chances that anyone will find out if I tell them, unless they or I talk about it?'
0.67%
That was pretty close to certain in her power's terms.
'Chances that anyone can overhear us?'
0.29%
OK. She wasn't going to get in trouble, except possibly from the Family, as long as she kept her mouth shut. She thought hard, formulating a question to work around the Family-induced errors a direct approach would generate. In the end, she settled on, 'Chances that anyone with a tail and scales means me or my family harm?'
There was a very slight delay, then her power gave her the answer, for some reason feeling just a little reluctant, or possibly unsure.
0.05%
She raised her eyebrows. That was the lowest percentage she'd ever received on anything. Odd.
"You promise you won't tell?" she asked. Better to be certain.
Taylor nodded, as did Raptaur and Metis. "We all promise not to tell anyone not a part of the Family anything you tell us," Metis said evenly. "Taylor won't tell anyone either, other than her dad, and then only if he needs to know."
Thinking it over, Dinah sighed. "OK. I'm a cape."
They didn't look surprised. "Thinker, correct?" Metis asked. She nodded, a bit startled. "I thought so. Don't worry, I am too, basically."
"Cool." She regarded the black lizard with interest. "Well, a while ago I figured out that my power doesn't work properly on the Family. It sort of gives an error, like a computer that's been asked to do something impossible." She frowned in thought, absently noticing that Metis was nodding as if she'd expected the answer. "It's weird."
"We're aware that we have that effect on human Thinkers," Raptaur commented.
"I heard that the PRT had tried it with other ones and found the same thing," she said, looking around at them. "They all give silly results, or no results at all."
"What do you get?"
"Not a number."
Metis stared at her, looking genuinely surprised, then suddenly looked extremely thoughtful. "Reeeallly," she said very slowly. "Now that is interesting."
"Do you mind saying how your power works?" Taylor asked. She indicated her friend, who was staring at the ground, concentrating on something. "Metis thinks you're probably a pre-cog."
"That's right," Dinah confirmed, impressed. "I get percentages. If I get asked a question, I get a number representing the chances of it happening. Or not happening, depending on how the question is worded. And assuming the question is the right sort, one that can be answered like that."
"Any time you get asked that sort of question?" Taylor queried after a moment's consideration.
Dinah frowned, nodding. "Yes. I can't help it. And I get really bad headaches if I answer more than half a dozen or so. They hurt a lot, and take hours to go away. But if I can space the questions out, I get it to be just a little painful, so it's not as bad as it could be, I guess."
"That's unpleasant," the taller girl replied. "Thinker headaches, they're called."
"That's what the PRT said. No drugs seem to do much."
"It's a problem with Parahuman abilities, and fairly common with Thinkers, hence the name," Metis said, rejoining the conversation. "There might be something Family biotech could do, I'll have to ask Ianthe. But that's a secret right now, so please don't mention it to anyone."
"I won't," Dinah promised. She looked curiously at Metis. "Do you get them?"
"No, I don't," the creature smiled. "But I know people who do and I know how bad it can be." She paused, then asked, "Can you ask yourself the questions?"
"I can. I can even do it silently. The weird thing is that if I ask a question that gives that error, I don't get the pain. So I spent a lot of time asking myself every question about the Family I could think of, because I think you're really interesting."
Metis and Raptaur exchanged a look while Taylor laughed. "I'd do the same thing. Did you get any results?"
"Not really," she sighed. "I worked out some ways to sort of go around the problem, but it doesn't work as well as I'd like. I can work out the chances of someone with a tail jumping a Merchant in the next week, for example, but if I ask if it's Saurial I get an error." She smiled briefly. "But there aren't that many capes with tails in the city so it's normally one of the Family."
"Clever," Raptaur chuckled. "I suspect you've been teaching yourself some interesting techniques in lateral thought. Well done."
"Thanks."
"So what made you think there was something up with me?" Taylor asked, before taking a bite out of her burger. She'd finished the fries by now. Dinah ate some more of her own, looking at the other girl, then explained what had happened. When she finished, Taylor's burger was gone, as were her fries, and she was munching on the rest of her snack.
"What do you think it means?" Metis asked her.
Swallowing her mouthful, she said, "I'm not sure, actually. I get the same error with Kaiju and Raptaur and Saurial as I do with Taylor. I can't quite figure it out. The obvious answer is that she's part of the Family too, but..." She looked the other girl up and down. "She looks completely normal, except for being taller than any girl should be."
Taylor grinned, looking down at herself. "I think I'm just the right height."
Dinah shrugged, not bothered. She was pretty sure she was never going to be that tall. "Anyway, unless you're actually Saurial in disguise, I can't work out why you'd give an error. I mean, obviously you're not Raptaur, or Kaiju of course, and I can see Metis right here next to me. Ianthe and Metis were in the same room as Saurial and Raptaur too, so they're obviously all real people." She grinned at Taylor, who was smiling a little. "But you weren't there, you're about the right height, and I guess you could be a Changer or something." She laughed at her joke.
Taylor looked at Raptaur, then Metis. Metis shrugged. "Your call."
The Hebert girl turned back to Dinah, who was becoming aware that something weird was going on. "Sorry about this. Chances that you'll tell anyone what I could show you?"
"0.49%" she blurted out, unable to help herself, then glared. "That was mean."
"I really am sorry, but I needed to check," Taylor smiled.
Dinah blinked.
She looked suspiciously at her remaining piece of burger, sniffed it, then looked up again.
Taylor smirked at her.
"Oh… my… god..." the girl slowly said, a smile growing on her face that was in danger of reaching her ears. "You have a tail!" She stared at the appendage that had suddenly appeared. Taylor waved it from side to side, showing it was entirely real. "How did you do that?"
"Sort of a partial Stranger ability, I can hide it from people, or let them see it." Taylor grinned at her. "Not many people know about it. I'm quite a bit stronger and faster than most people too."
"You're a Parahuman too?"
"Um… not quite. It's a little complicated." The tailed girl scratched the back of her head, then ran her hand through her hair. "Long, long story. But the main thing is that I'm pretty closely related to the Family in some important ways."
"That's…" Dinah stared at her. "Really peculiar."
Taylor chuckled. "I've been told I am too. I can't quite see it myself."
Raptaur snorted, making her friend look at her, then look back to Dinah, who was giggling. "Ignore her. Anyway, it's too complicated to get into right now. But that might well be why your ability gets confused about me too."
"I guess so," Dinah replied, fascinated. She wondered how Taylor had ended up with a tail, and what it was like. "Can you sit on it like they do?"
"Sure." She did so, looking like it was entirely natural to her. Grinning, the younger brunette was briefly envious.
"Neat. So now what?"
"We'll trust each other, OK?" Taylor said. "You're a good kid, I'm sure of that, and Roy is a friend, of the Family, my dad, and me now. The issue is that we're trying to protect our own families. My dad is at risk if the wrong people find out about me, the same as if you were known to the wrong people. There are some very unpleasant ones out there who would love to have a pre-cog. Or even someone who can do what I can. That wouldn't end well, considering my friends here would end up getting a little annoyed. Generally speaking people don't want that to happen." She grinned when Dinah rolled her eyes, since that was extremely obvious.
"I love my dad and I'll do anything I need to to protect him, or my other friends. That's everyone at the DWU for a start. I'd like to think of you as one of them too."
"So would I," Dinah said with utter honesty. "I promise I won't tell anyone your secret."
"Thank you," Taylor said gratefully. "Even the PRT? We don't trust them completely, although the ones here in the Bay are mostly pretty decent people. But there's all sorts of politics involved, it gets messy, and my friends just want to get on with fixing things and helping people."
"I sort of know what you mean," the girl sighed. "I was telling them about some of the problems I had and hardly anyone listened to me. I'm 'too young' to 'fully appreciate the intricacies of power interactions,' she said somewhat sarcastically, making little finger quotes. "So I stopped talking about it and did my own experiments."
"And got further than they did by the sound of it," Metis said.
She nodded. "I like to think so. No, I won't mention any of this to them."
Taylor looked grateful. "Thank you."
They looked at each other for a moment, before Dinah stuffed the remains of her food into her mouth and swallowed after some hasty chewing. "I have so many questions," she remarked.
"I'm not surprised. But you need to get back before anyone becomes suspicious. Thanks for talking to us." Taylor smiled at her. "Next time we meet up, and I'm sure there will be a next time, I'll try to tell you some more. Other people are involved and I can't tell their stories though."
"OK." Dinah took the helmet which Raptaur handed her. Pulling it on, she connected the strap.
"Have fun, and I'm sure I'll see you again soon enough." She stood up, waved, then went back through the roof exit, taking the now-empty bag and the wrappings with her.
"See you back at the DWU, Dinah," Metis said, before charging towards the edge of the roof and flinging herself into the darkness, disappearing instantly. As Raptaur began running again, heading towards the Boardwalk, the girl on her back wondered what the relationship between them all and Taylor really was.
Minutes later, moving down the tourist area and waving at the gaping people surrounding them, she forgot about that for the moment. This was much more fun.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Impressive," Roy said, turning to the part-feline woman in a domino mask and overalls over jeans and a T-shirt who was watching him. She'd shown them around the large workshop, which was clearly a work in progress, but was heading towards being very well equipped. Vectura nodded, looking pleased.
"I see you're still setting up equipment," he continued. "I assume when you get it finished, you'll start making something?"
She smiled, showing a flash of over-sized incisor. The feline traits went deeper than just the visible parts, he decided. "Yes, I have quite a list of projects I want to start on. Raptaur and Saurial will be helping with making some parts for me, and I've been discussing things with Leet. He's got some interesting ideas I can use with a little work."
"Ah, you've met those two, then," he noted. "I understand they're heading in the direction of going straight?"
Danny nodded with a sort of smile. "More or less. They've been hanging around here quite a lot, they collaborated with Dragon, Armsmaster, Raptaur, and Legend of all people on a couple of projects recently, and I think the Family has rubbed off on them. Again. They keep doing that."
Roy snickered. "I can see how they might. Meeting them tends to challenge your world view a little."
His sister started giggling while Vectura sighed and nodded, with the air of someone with whom that comment resonated well. "Tell me about it. It's fair to say that I'd be in a very bad place if it wasn't for them. But that's in the past, I've got a shiny new workshop, new friends I trust, and some very interesting possibilities coming up."
"I was tempted to point her at the Ferry," Danny grinned. "The problem is that having seen some of her ideas, we'd end up with a ferry that would hit mach four at ten thousand feet before it reached the other side of the bay, which would be awkward. And loud, I think."
Vectura looked at him, then smiled wryly. "I could make it go a little slower."
"You could, but would you?" he asked knowingly. "I have the weirdest feeling you'd… improve… it. Tinkers tend to do that."
"We're not all that bad," she retorted. He kept looking at her, making her shrug. "Not all the time, anyway."
"Finish some of the smaller stuff first, then we can look at large ships," he advised wisely. She nodded, smiling.
"Probably for the best."
"I'll be interested in seeing what happens," Roy said. "You're going to the PRT next week, I understand."
"That's the plan. Power testing, some paperwork to let them know about me, since they're very interested in Tinkers in general, that sort of thing," she confirmed. "Mind you, every fucker on the planet is after Tinkers. I have no interest in being forced into a gang, and I'm not interested in joining the Protectorate for personal reasons. Being an independent is a problem if I'm on my own, so when I was offered this, I jumped at it." She looked around the huge room. "I get paid to help out with normal stuff, I get my own workshop, I have access to the most ridiculously powerful set of capes I've ever heard of to help make parts, and everyone is really nice."
She smiled again. "The food's great too, and the bed is comfortable. Couldn't ask for more to be honest."
Roy nodded slowly, listening to her. She seemed entirely genuine about it to his ears, which were well practiced in discerning truth from fiction. There was obviously an interesting backstory she was avoiding, which he suspected was probably somewhat unpleasant, but she seemed happy now. Danny was listening with a look that suggested he was pleased too, and if the Family were involved, there was a good reason for it.
Privately he was pretty sure that one way or the other the DWU now had access to more capes than anyone in the city but the E88, since he was aware that the Undersiders had vanished very close to here and rumor had it that the DWU was involved in that as well. Not to mention at least five large scaly reptilian Parahumans, Vectura herself, Cloak, Amy Dallon in some ways, probably Über and Leet now, and he wouldn't be at all surprised to find out there were others he didn't know about. And New Wave seemed pretty close to them, most likely through Amy. Vicky was certainly considered a friend.
No, at this point the DWU was in a very powerful position, whether they knew it or not. Danny being who he was, he undoubtedly did know, but at the same time didn't actually have any plans in that direction aside from making the entire union that much more effective at doing what they did, something Roy was more than pleased about. He was quite happy to let them get on with their jobs, since they made his job that much easier and were rapidly turning the economy of the city around.
Idly wondering if the PRT was fully aware of quite how much of a force to be reckoned with the formerly moribund union had rather abruptly but mostly quietly become, he looked around again. "Well, good luck with it, in any case. I'm sure you'll have an interesting time here. I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with."
"I'll keep you up to date on anything useful that comes out of here, Roy," Danny assured him. "We'll do our best to make sure it's safe."
"Safeish," Vectura corrected.
"Safe." Danny gave her a look.
"Ish," she added with a smirk.
Sighing, he shook his head. "She fits in all too well, you see," he complained, Roy and his sister both laughing.
Hearing the door open, they all looked over to see Saurial come in. "Hi, guys," she said. "Raptaur's just about to come back. I could hear Dinah laughing from a quarter of a mile away."
Cheryl looked pleased. "I hope she had a nice time."
"I think that goes without saying." The lizard-girl seemed happy. "Hi, Vectura. How's it going?"
"Well, thanks, Saurial," the Tinker replied. "I'm going to want to talk to you soon, I have some plans that I want to go over. I'm just about at the point to make some of the parts we need."
"Great. Tomorrow afternoon? I'm a bit busy right now."
"Sure, that would be good." Vectura nodded in satisfaction.
"OK, I'll find you then." Saurial glanced towards the still-open door. "They're back."
"Let's go see how your daughter is doing, sis," Roy said, waving at the door. Cheryl turned to Vectura, holding out her hand.
"It was nice to meet you. I hope it goes well with the PRT."
The cat-woman shook the offered hand, smiling. "I think it will. I enjoyed meeting you Mrs Alcott. Mayor Christner. I'd better get back to setting up this gear."
Nodding to the two men, she turned and headed up the stairs to the upper level, disappearing between some shelves. The others left the building, Danny closing the door as he brought up the rear.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Pleased with the way the visit had gone, and satisfied with the outcome of the chat with Dinah, Taylor watched as the girl slid down off her back. She and the Varga had been handing off control of each version of her as needed, the process pretty smooth now and more or less seamless to outside observation. The younger girl had obviously enjoyed the hell out of the ride, the smile on her face was practically welded on at this point.
"I think that went well," the demon commented. "She learned enough to satisfy her about why you, or Taylor rather, cause her ability problems. We learned somewhat more about her, and I believe Lisa has some interesting insights as a result. Everyone seems to have come out of it with enough to keep them happy. Even if she did tell anyone, the damage it could do is minimal."
'I very much doubt she'll say anything,' Taylor replied. 'Leaving aside the way her own power says she won't, I don't think she has any real reason to. I think the PRT is the best place for her and she knows it but at the same time she's no unthinking cheerleader for them. The girl is smart, and a bit annoyed at being ignored by people older than her who think they know how her power works better than she does. I'm not convinced they do.'
"Quite likely not from what she said." After a moment, her companion asked, "Do you intend to tell her more about the Family and us?"
'We'll have to see how things work out. I'd like to, I happen to like her and I think she'd probably enjoy things here, the same as Vista. They're pretty similar in some ways actually, come to think of it. I suspect they'll be good friends in the Wards even if they aren't already.'
"Good, I like Vista too and she struck me as someone who needed another female friend. She was very taken with you, you know. She trusts you a lot."
'I trust her a lot, and think she's got some incredible abilities,' Taylor smiled internally. 'We've learned some interesting things from each other.'
She switched to the viewpoint of her Saurial aspect and sat at the table, Dinah and her mother doing the same next to her. "Did you have fun?" she asked the girl, who was fiddling with the strap to her helmet. Getting it undone finally she yanked it off and laughed like an idiot.
"Fun?! I've never had so much fun in my life," Dinah said when she calmed down a little. "We ran right up the side of the Medhall building! The view from up there is amazing, you can see all the way to the other side of the bay! And then we ran down it again, that was scary!" She was bouncing in her seat, grinning wildly. Her mother shared a look with Taylor, appearing very pleased.
"And we met up with Metis, and had a snack, and then walked down the boardwalk and all the tourists were taking pictures and pointing, and then passed all the cars on the freeway..." She listed everything she could think of, although she completely omitted meeting Taylor. When she finally ran down, she slumped in the chair and ran her hands through her hair. "It was good," she finished, a little anticlimactically.
Roy laughed, putting his hand on her head. "I'm glad you enjoyed it so much, Princess. Thank you, Raptaur, it was very good of you to go to so much trouble."
"Think nothing of it, Roy," Taylor's other aspect said, smiling.
Lisa came in, her Metis face looking amused. "I could hear her from fifty feet away even through the EDM wall," she reported. "I take it that she's pleased with the way it went."
"Apparently so," 'Ianthe' chuckled. "Did you get that job sorted?"
"I did, thanks," the black lizard replied, looking at her, then Taylor's aspects.
Roy checked his watch. "I believe we should probably leave them alone now, they've given us over three hours of their time, Dinah," he said to his niece, who appeared disappointed but accepting.
"It was nice to see you all, Roy, Cheryl," Taylor's father commented. "And you of course, Dinah."
"Thanks, Danny," Cheryl said gratefully. "This has been an extraordinary visit."
"You'll have to come back some time," he replied. "I'll walk you back to your car."
"Thanks," she told him. "Come on, Dinah, we've got lots of photos to show your dad, he should be back from work by now."
"And I've got a nice pen," Dinah said happily, pulling the named item out of her pocket and holding it up.
"You can keep the helmet and gloves if you like," Taylor said through Raptaur. "You never know, they might come in useful some day."
"Thank you," the girl said, politely but with a broad smile.
"You were admiring that poster earlier," 'Metis' remarked, pointing at the one of Saurial in a ready pose. "Would you like a copy of it?"
"I would, very much," Dinah assured her. Lisa glanced at Taylor's Saurial aspect, who waved at the table in front of her. A duplicate poster formed there, making Dinah produce an impressed grin. "Wow."
"Want me to autograph it?" Taylor asked.
"That would be fantastic," their visitor said politely. "I have a pen." She held out the one she had in her hand still with an amused look. Taylor took it and signed the bottom right corner of the poster, then handed the pen back and rolled the poster up, giving it to the younger girl.
"Here you go."
"This has been so much fun," Dinah smiled as she jumped off the chair. With no warning she quickly hugged Taylor, who knelt and returned it, then dashed over and repeated it with 'Raptaur'. Everyone laughed at the ridiculous contrast in sizes. The petite twelve year old practically vanished into the arms of the huge reptilian figure.
"Take care, Dinah," her other aspect rumbled. "It was a lot of fun. See you around sometime."
"I hope so," she replied. "OK, Mom, I'm ready to go."
She and her mother, along with Danny, headed for the door. She waved as they left, the others waving back. Roy, who had hung back, nodded to them. "Once again, thank you. It meant a lot to her. And me."
"You're welcome, Roy," Taylor said through Saurial. "I think we all enjoyed it."
"Good bye, Ladies. Until next time. Give my best to Kaiju." He left, pulling the door shut.
The four left behind looked at each other. "Well, that was interesting," the Varga said, using Raptaur.
"Wasn't it?" Lisa replied thoughtfully. "Very interesting indeed."
"Found out what was going on with her?" Amy asked.
"Yes, Lisa was right, she's Prospect, definitely, and she's a pre-cog. A powerful one, although limited by Thinker headaches," Taylor replied, leaning on the table. "She gets percentage likelihood chances of future events if the question is formulated correctly. Apparently she doesn't actually have any choice about answering them, which is sort of annoying, I suspect. I tested it, when I asked her if she'd tell anyone about something I could show her. She told me just under half a percent chance, then gave me a really filthy look."
Amy snickered. "Poor girl. How many questions can she do before the pain gets too bad?"
"Half a dozen or so. Think a symbiote would help?"
"Probably, but it would most likely take the neural amplifier upgrade to fix it properly. Which is difficult to do if the PRT have her in the Wards, they give all the people they get their hands on full medicals which includes a detailed MRI scan. They'd spot the difference the next time they scanned her, and although I don't think they'd instantly work out what it was, they'd probably think it was a tumor." Amy looked thoughtful. "I might be able to disguise it a little more effectively, I'll have to think about it."
"Well, it's not like we're going to upgrade her just like that, but it's useful to have a plan in case it ever comes up." Taylor picked up one of the cans of soda left over and idly ate it.
"What did you actually show her?"
"My tail." Amy looked puzzled, causing her to grin. "It seemed the safest thing right now. I considered showing her Saurial, which would have been funny since she actually suggested that I might be a Changer and secretly Saurial all along."
"Which you are."
"Which I am. But the problem is that sooner or later she'd see Saurial and Taylor at the same time and she'd figure out something was up. On the other hand, Taylor with a tail is fine from that point of view and took a lot less explaining. If we get to know her better, I'll probably let her know more. Or if she works any more of it out, I guess. But that'll do for now."
Lisa looked at her, having been deep in thought up until now. "Are you going to tell Danny about any of this?"
Taylor shook her head. "I'll tell him that we confirmed some of your theories and I showed her my tail, but I won't go into details. He won't mind, he doesn't need to know that part anyway and understands that I don't want to give away any more about other Parahumans than necessary."
"All right. That sounds reasonable."
"I believe we can consider this a successful evening," the Varga stated.
They all nodded. "Definitely. And fun too. Maybe we should be giving rides on the Boardwalk, there were a lot of people who seemed pretty envious," Taylor grinned.
"Something for the summer," Amy said. "So what do you want to do now?"
"Same thing we do every night?"
"Try to confuse the fuck out of the world?"
"That's it."
Taylor snickered. "I have some interesting ideas along those lines. But..." Amy and Lisa watched as Raptaur disappeared. She rubbed her head for a moment. "That was starting to be a little tiring. But it's been about two and a half hours continuously which is more than we expected."
"How long do you need to rest before you can do it again?" Lisa asked.
"A couple of hours should do it. It's basically a mental exercise, a really complicated one. Like playing half a dozen chess games against yourself and having to visualize all the boards and keep them separate." She ate another can of soda. "I'll build up more stamina with time but I'm completely happy with even this."
Forming a copy on the other side of the room and transferring to it, she added, "And I can do this without much effort, since the duplicate is only there for a moment. Which is so fucking cool I can't believe it."
"I have never been as envious of you as I am right now," Amy grumbled. "You figured out how to teleport and didn't even realize you'd done it! That's just not fair."
Smirking, Taylor teleported back to her start position. "But Lisa says it's not teleporting, really."
"Close enough," Lisa said. "I don't have a better word for it, even though it's not strictly accurate, and as far as anyone can tell that's what you're doing, so you may as well call it that." She sighed, watching as Taylor hopped around the room again, blinking in and out of existence. "Stop that, I'm getting dizzy."
"You'd be doing this too," her friend laughed, but relented, stopping her popping around the place next to her.
"True," the black reptile said. "Very true."
"We really need to learn demon magic," Amy said.
"He thinks it's probably possible, but he's still trying to work out how to actually teach it," Taylor reported. "It's sort of complicated to explain if you're not in my head."
"I can wait. For a while." Amy grinned at her. "Come on, let's make another biogun. And I've finished the design for the one-shot healing symbiotes, by the way."
"Great! We need to find someone with an injury to test them on."
"That's easy enough," Lisa giggled darkly, forming a knife in her hand and flicking the tip of the blade meaningfully. They shared a look, grinned, and went into the workroom. "I also need to talk to you about explosives, Amy."
"Explosives?"
"Explosives."
"Tell me more."
"You OK?" The deep voice sounded concerned.
"I'll be OK in a minute," she replied weakly. She shook her head in wonder. "Wow."
"It's a little intense the first time," her companion smiled.
She nodded, unable to think of anything else to say.
"Let's stop for a break, to let you recover. I know a good place, I'll keep the speed down until we get there."
"Thank you," Dinah mumbled, feeling her heart gradually slow from 'AHHH! GOING TO DIE!!' mode to merely quite fast.
The reptile trotted at a fast walk across the next roof, hurdled the street, and slowly sped up to about twice that speed for the next few buildings. When Dinah looked up, they were somewhere about halfway between the Medhall building and the Boardwalk, the sea visible through the gaps in the buildings. Raptaur was apparently heading for a large low one with a flat roof. As they approached, Dinah spotted someone coming out of a roof access door carrying a paper bag.
Landing on the roof, they approached the person, who was waiting for them. Dinah was a little surprised, although not as much as she might have been, to see it was Taylor. "Hello, Dinah," the older girl said as they stopped next to her. Raptaur squatted down on all fours, like a huge cat. "I got you a snack," Taylor added, opening the bag and pulling out a burger and small fries.
"Thanks," Dinah replied, pulling her helmet off. Raptaur reached around and took it from her, not looking even slightly surprised about the Hebert girl being there. It was obviously a prearranged meeting. Moments later, Metis appeared over the edge of the roof and joined them.
Looking around a little nervously, Dinah smiled uncertainly.
"Don't worry, no one is going to hurt you, I promise," Raptaur reassured her. She took the food from Taylor and twisted her torso around to hand it to Dinah. "We just had a couple of questions. About last night."
"She told you," Dinah noted, as she accepted the burger and fries. Taylor was unpacking several more, one of which she kept, the other four going two each to both the others. They were the huge ones from Fugly's, the younger girl noticed.
"I did," Taylor replied, leaning casually on Raptaur's side and eating some fries. "You worked something out. About me, or connected to me, and probably about the Family. We were just wondering what it was, whether it's something we need to get prepared to deal with, and if you can tell us, how you did it." She ate some more of the actually really tasty fries, watching Dinah's face. "You don't need to tell us that last bit if you don't want to, but we are curious. And we promise no one outside the Family will learn anything you say. No one can hear us here either."
Nibbling a fry of her own, Dinah thought, looking around at them. None of them seemed mad, just as they said, curious with a hint of concern. She asked herself a question. 'Chances that anyone will find out if I tell them, unless they or I talk about it?'
0.67%
That was pretty close to certain in her power's terms.
'Chances that anyone can overhear us?'
0.29%
OK. She wasn't going to get in trouble, except possibly from the Family, as long as she kept her mouth shut. She thought hard, formulating a question to work around the Family-induced errors a direct approach would generate. In the end, she settled on, 'Chances that anyone with a tail and scales means me or my family harm?'
There was a very slight delay, then her power gave her the answer, for some reason feeling just a little reluctant, or possibly unsure.
0.05%
She raised her eyebrows. That was the lowest percentage she'd ever received on anything. Odd.
"You promise you won't tell?" she asked. Better to be certain.
Taylor nodded, as did Raptaur and Metis. "We all promise not to tell anyone not a part of the Family anything you tell us," Metis said evenly. "Taylor won't tell anyone either, other than her dad, and then only if he needs to know."
Thinking it over, Dinah sighed. "OK. I'm a cape."
They didn't look surprised. "Thinker, correct?" Metis asked. She nodded, a bit startled. "I thought so. Don't worry, I am too, basically."
"Cool." She regarded the black lizard with interest. "Well, a while ago I figured out that my power doesn't work properly on the Family. It sort of gives an error, like a computer that's been asked to do something impossible." She frowned in thought, absently noticing that Metis was nodding as if she'd expected the answer. "It's weird."
"We're aware that we have that effect on human Thinkers," Raptaur commented.
"I heard that the PRT had tried it with other ones and found the same thing," she said, looking around at them. "They all give silly results, or no results at all."
"What do you get?"
"Not a number."
Metis stared at her, looking genuinely surprised, then suddenly looked extremely thoughtful. "Reeeallly," she said very slowly. "Now that is interesting."
"Do you mind saying how your power works?" Taylor asked. She indicated her friend, who was staring at the ground, concentrating on something. "Metis thinks you're probably a pre-cog."
"That's right," Dinah confirmed, impressed. "I get percentages. If I get asked a question, I get a number representing the chances of it happening. Or not happening, depending on how the question is worded. And assuming the question is the right sort, one that can be answered like that."
"Any time you get asked that sort of question?" Taylor queried after a moment's consideration.
Dinah frowned, nodding. "Yes. I can't help it. And I get really bad headaches if I answer more than half a dozen or so. They hurt a lot, and take hours to go away. But if I can space the questions out, I get it to be just a little painful, so it's not as bad as it could be, I guess."
"That's unpleasant," the taller girl replied. "Thinker headaches, they're called."
"That's what the PRT said. No drugs seem to do much."
"It's a problem with Parahuman abilities, and fairly common with Thinkers, hence the name," Metis said, rejoining the conversation. "There might be something Family biotech could do, I'll have to ask Ianthe. But that's a secret right now, so please don't mention it to anyone."
"I won't," Dinah promised. She looked curiously at Metis. "Do you get them?"
"No, I don't," the creature smiled. "But I know people who do and I know how bad it can be." She paused, then asked, "Can you ask yourself the questions?"
"I can. I can even do it silently. The weird thing is that if I ask a question that gives that error, I don't get the pain. So I spent a lot of time asking myself every question about the Family I could think of, because I think you're really interesting."
Metis and Raptaur exchanged a look while Taylor laughed. "I'd do the same thing. Did you get any results?"
"Not really," she sighed. "I worked out some ways to sort of go around the problem, but it doesn't work as well as I'd like. I can work out the chances of someone with a tail jumping a Merchant in the next week, for example, but if I ask if it's Saurial I get an error." She smiled briefly. "But there aren't that many capes with tails in the city so it's normally one of the Family."
"Clever," Raptaur chuckled. "I suspect you've been teaching yourself some interesting techniques in lateral thought. Well done."
"Thanks."
"So what made you think there was something up with me?" Taylor asked, before taking a bite out of her burger. She'd finished the fries by now. Dinah ate some more of her own, looking at the other girl, then explained what had happened. When she finished, Taylor's burger was gone, as were her fries, and she was munching on the rest of her snack.
"What do you think it means?" Metis asked her.
Swallowing her mouthful, she said, "I'm not sure, actually. I get the same error with Kaiju and Raptaur and Saurial as I do with Taylor. I can't quite figure it out. The obvious answer is that she's part of the Family too, but..." She looked the other girl up and down. "She looks completely normal, except for being taller than any girl should be."
Taylor grinned, looking down at herself. "I think I'm just the right height."
Dinah shrugged, not bothered. She was pretty sure she was never going to be that tall. "Anyway, unless you're actually Saurial in disguise, I can't work out why you'd give an error. I mean, obviously you're not Raptaur, or Kaiju of course, and I can see Metis right here next to me. Ianthe and Metis were in the same room as Saurial and Raptaur too, so they're obviously all real people." She grinned at Taylor, who was smiling a little. "But you weren't there, you're about the right height, and I guess you could be a Changer or something." She laughed at her joke.
Taylor looked at Raptaur, then Metis. Metis shrugged. "Your call."
The Hebert girl turned back to Dinah, who was becoming aware that something weird was going on. "Sorry about this. Chances that you'll tell anyone what I could show you?"
"0.49%" she blurted out, unable to help herself, then glared. "That was mean."
"I really am sorry, but I needed to check," Taylor smiled.
Dinah blinked.
She looked suspiciously at her remaining piece of burger, sniffed it, then looked up again.
Taylor smirked at her.
"Oh… my… god..." the girl slowly said, a smile growing on her face that was in danger of reaching her ears. "You have a tail!" She stared at the appendage that had suddenly appeared. Taylor waved it from side to side, showing it was entirely real. "How did you do that?"
"Sort of a partial Stranger ability, I can hide it from people, or let them see it." Taylor grinned at her. "Not many people know about it. I'm quite a bit stronger and faster than most people too."
"You're a Parahuman too?"
"Um… not quite. It's a little complicated." The tailed girl scratched the back of her head, then ran her hand through her hair. "Long, long story. But the main thing is that I'm pretty closely related to the Family in some important ways."
"That's…" Dinah stared at her. "Really peculiar."
Taylor chuckled. "I've been told I am too. I can't quite see it myself."
Raptaur snorted, making her friend look at her, then look back to Dinah, who was giggling. "Ignore her. Anyway, it's too complicated to get into right now. But that might well be why your ability gets confused about me too."
"I guess so," Dinah replied, fascinated. She wondered how Taylor had ended up with a tail, and what it was like. "Can you sit on it like they do?"
"Sure." She did so, looking like it was entirely natural to her. Grinning, the younger brunette was briefly envious.
"Neat. So now what?"
"We'll trust each other, OK?" Taylor said. "You're a good kid, I'm sure of that, and Roy is a friend, of the Family, my dad, and me now. The issue is that we're trying to protect our own families. My dad is at risk if the wrong people find out about me, the same as if you were known to the wrong people. There are some very unpleasant ones out there who would love to have a pre-cog. Or even someone who can do what I can. That wouldn't end well, considering my friends here would end up getting a little annoyed. Generally speaking people don't want that to happen." She grinned when Dinah rolled her eyes, since that was extremely obvious.
"I love my dad and I'll do anything I need to to protect him, or my other friends. That's everyone at the DWU for a start. I'd like to think of you as one of them too."
"So would I," Dinah said with utter honesty. "I promise I won't tell anyone your secret."
"Thank you," Taylor said gratefully. "Even the PRT? We don't trust them completely, although the ones here in the Bay are mostly pretty decent people. But there's all sorts of politics involved, it gets messy, and my friends just want to get on with fixing things and helping people."
"I sort of know what you mean," the girl sighed. "I was telling them about some of the problems I had and hardly anyone listened to me. I'm 'too young' to 'fully appreciate the intricacies of power interactions,' she said somewhat sarcastically, making little finger quotes. "So I stopped talking about it and did my own experiments."
"And got further than they did by the sound of it," Metis said.
She nodded. "I like to think so. No, I won't mention any of this to them."
Taylor looked grateful. "Thank you."
They looked at each other for a moment, before Dinah stuffed the remains of her food into her mouth and swallowed after some hasty chewing. "I have so many questions," she remarked.
"I'm not surprised. But you need to get back before anyone becomes suspicious. Thanks for talking to us." Taylor smiled at her. "Next time we meet up, and I'm sure there will be a next time, I'll try to tell you some more. Other people are involved and I can't tell their stories though."
"OK." Dinah took the helmet which Raptaur handed her. Pulling it on, she connected the strap.
"Have fun, and I'm sure I'll see you again soon enough." She stood up, waved, then went back through the roof exit, taking the now-empty bag and the wrappings with her.
"See you back at the DWU, Dinah," Metis said, before charging towards the edge of the roof and flinging herself into the darkness, disappearing instantly. As Raptaur began running again, heading towards the Boardwalk, the girl on her back wondered what the relationship between them all and Taylor really was.
Minutes later, moving down the tourist area and waving at the gaping people surrounding them, she forgot about that for the moment. This was much more fun.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Impressive," Roy said, turning to the part-feline woman in a domino mask and overalls over jeans and a T-shirt who was watching him. She'd shown them around the large workshop, which was clearly a work in progress, but was heading towards being very well equipped. Vectura nodded, looking pleased.
"I see you're still setting up equipment," he continued. "I assume when you get it finished, you'll start making something?"
She smiled, showing a flash of over-sized incisor. The feline traits went deeper than just the visible parts, he decided. "Yes, I have quite a list of projects I want to start on. Raptaur and Saurial will be helping with making some parts for me, and I've been discussing things with Leet. He's got some interesting ideas I can use with a little work."
"Ah, you've met those two, then," he noted. "I understand they're heading in the direction of going straight?"
Danny nodded with a sort of smile. "More or less. They've been hanging around here quite a lot, they collaborated with Dragon, Armsmaster, Raptaur, and Legend of all people on a couple of projects recently, and I think the Family has rubbed off on them. Again. They keep doing that."
Roy snickered. "I can see how they might. Meeting them tends to challenge your world view a little."
His sister started giggling while Vectura sighed and nodded, with the air of someone with whom that comment resonated well. "Tell me about it. It's fair to say that I'd be in a very bad place if it wasn't for them. But that's in the past, I've got a shiny new workshop, new friends I trust, and some very interesting possibilities coming up."
"I was tempted to point her at the Ferry," Danny grinned. "The problem is that having seen some of her ideas, we'd end up with a ferry that would hit mach four at ten thousand feet before it reached the other side of the bay, which would be awkward. And loud, I think."
Vectura looked at him, then smiled wryly. "I could make it go a little slower."
"You could, but would you?" he asked knowingly. "I have the weirdest feeling you'd… improve… it. Tinkers tend to do that."
"We're not all that bad," she retorted. He kept looking at her, making her shrug. "Not all the time, anyway."
"Finish some of the smaller stuff first, then we can look at large ships," he advised wisely. She nodded, smiling.
"Probably for the best."
"I'll be interested in seeing what happens," Roy said. "You're going to the PRT next week, I understand."
"That's the plan. Power testing, some paperwork to let them know about me, since they're very interested in Tinkers in general, that sort of thing," she confirmed. "Mind you, every fucker on the planet is after Tinkers. I have no interest in being forced into a gang, and I'm not interested in joining the Protectorate for personal reasons. Being an independent is a problem if I'm on my own, so when I was offered this, I jumped at it." She looked around the huge room. "I get paid to help out with normal stuff, I get my own workshop, I have access to the most ridiculously powerful set of capes I've ever heard of to help make parts, and everyone is really nice."
She smiled again. "The food's great too, and the bed is comfortable. Couldn't ask for more to be honest."
Roy nodded slowly, listening to her. She seemed entirely genuine about it to his ears, which were well practiced in discerning truth from fiction. There was obviously an interesting backstory she was avoiding, which he suspected was probably somewhat unpleasant, but she seemed happy now. Danny was listening with a look that suggested he was pleased too, and if the Family were involved, there was a good reason for it.
Privately he was pretty sure that one way or the other the DWU now had access to more capes than anyone in the city but the E88, since he was aware that the Undersiders had vanished very close to here and rumor had it that the DWU was involved in that as well. Not to mention at least five large scaly reptilian Parahumans, Vectura herself, Cloak, Amy Dallon in some ways, probably Über and Leet now, and he wouldn't be at all surprised to find out there were others he didn't know about. And New Wave seemed pretty close to them, most likely through Amy. Vicky was certainly considered a friend.
No, at this point the DWU was in a very powerful position, whether they knew it or not. Danny being who he was, he undoubtedly did know, but at the same time didn't actually have any plans in that direction aside from making the entire union that much more effective at doing what they did, something Roy was more than pleased about. He was quite happy to let them get on with their jobs, since they made his job that much easier and were rapidly turning the economy of the city around.
Idly wondering if the PRT was fully aware of quite how much of a force to be reckoned with the formerly moribund union had rather abruptly but mostly quietly become, he looked around again. "Well, good luck with it, in any case. I'm sure you'll have an interesting time here. I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with."
"I'll keep you up to date on anything useful that comes out of here, Roy," Danny assured him. "We'll do our best to make sure it's safe."
"Safeish," Vectura corrected.
"Safe." Danny gave her a look.
"Ish," she added with a smirk.
Sighing, he shook his head. "She fits in all too well, you see," he complained, Roy and his sister both laughing.
Hearing the door open, they all looked over to see Saurial come in. "Hi, guys," she said. "Raptaur's just about to come back. I could hear Dinah laughing from a quarter of a mile away."
Cheryl looked pleased. "I hope she had a nice time."
"I think that goes without saying." The lizard-girl seemed happy. "Hi, Vectura. How's it going?"
"Well, thanks, Saurial," the Tinker replied. "I'm going to want to talk to you soon, I have some plans that I want to go over. I'm just about at the point to make some of the parts we need."
"Great. Tomorrow afternoon? I'm a bit busy right now."
"Sure, that would be good." Vectura nodded in satisfaction.
"OK, I'll find you then." Saurial glanced towards the still-open door. "They're back."
"Let's go see how your daughter is doing, sis," Roy said, waving at the door. Cheryl turned to Vectura, holding out her hand.
"It was nice to meet you. I hope it goes well with the PRT."
The cat-woman shook the offered hand, smiling. "I think it will. I enjoyed meeting you Mrs Alcott. Mayor Christner. I'd better get back to setting up this gear."
Nodding to the two men, she turned and headed up the stairs to the upper level, disappearing between some shelves. The others left the building, Danny closing the door as he brought up the rear.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Pleased with the way the visit had gone, and satisfied with the outcome of the chat with Dinah, Taylor watched as the girl slid down off her back. She and the Varga had been handing off control of each version of her as needed, the process pretty smooth now and more or less seamless to outside observation. The younger girl had obviously enjoyed the hell out of the ride, the smile on her face was practically welded on at this point.
"I think that went well," the demon commented. "She learned enough to satisfy her about why you, or Taylor rather, cause her ability problems. We learned somewhat more about her, and I believe Lisa has some interesting insights as a result. Everyone seems to have come out of it with enough to keep them happy. Even if she did tell anyone, the damage it could do is minimal."
'I very much doubt she'll say anything,' Taylor replied. 'Leaving aside the way her own power says she won't, I don't think she has any real reason to. I think the PRT is the best place for her and she knows it but at the same time she's no unthinking cheerleader for them. The girl is smart, and a bit annoyed at being ignored by people older than her who think they know how her power works better than she does. I'm not convinced they do.'
"Quite likely not from what she said." After a moment, her companion asked, "Do you intend to tell her more about the Family and us?"
'We'll have to see how things work out. I'd like to, I happen to like her and I think she'd probably enjoy things here, the same as Vista. They're pretty similar in some ways actually, come to think of it. I suspect they'll be good friends in the Wards even if they aren't already.'
"Good, I like Vista too and she struck me as someone who needed another female friend. She was very taken with you, you know. She trusts you a lot."
'I trust her a lot, and think she's got some incredible abilities,' Taylor smiled internally. 'We've learned some interesting things from each other.'
She switched to the viewpoint of her Saurial aspect and sat at the table, Dinah and her mother doing the same next to her. "Did you have fun?" she asked the girl, who was fiddling with the strap to her helmet. Getting it undone finally she yanked it off and laughed like an idiot.
"Fun?! I've never had so much fun in my life," Dinah said when she calmed down a little. "We ran right up the side of the Medhall building! The view from up there is amazing, you can see all the way to the other side of the bay! And then we ran down it again, that was scary!" She was bouncing in her seat, grinning wildly. Her mother shared a look with Taylor, appearing very pleased.
"And we met up with Metis, and had a snack, and then walked down the boardwalk and all the tourists were taking pictures and pointing, and then passed all the cars on the freeway..." She listed everything she could think of, although she completely omitted meeting Taylor. When she finally ran down, she slumped in the chair and ran her hands through her hair. "It was good," she finished, a little anticlimactically.
Roy laughed, putting his hand on her head. "I'm glad you enjoyed it so much, Princess. Thank you, Raptaur, it was very good of you to go to so much trouble."
"Think nothing of it, Roy," Taylor's other aspect said, smiling.
Lisa came in, her Metis face looking amused. "I could hear her from fifty feet away even through the EDM wall," she reported. "I take it that she's pleased with the way it went."
"Apparently so," 'Ianthe' chuckled. "Did you get that job sorted?"
"I did, thanks," the black lizard replied, looking at her, then Taylor's aspects.
Roy checked his watch. "I believe we should probably leave them alone now, they've given us over three hours of their time, Dinah," he said to his niece, who appeared disappointed but accepting.
"It was nice to see you all, Roy, Cheryl," Taylor's father commented. "And you of course, Dinah."
"Thanks, Danny," Cheryl said gratefully. "This has been an extraordinary visit."
"You'll have to come back some time," he replied. "I'll walk you back to your car."
"Thanks," she told him. "Come on, Dinah, we've got lots of photos to show your dad, he should be back from work by now."
"And I've got a nice pen," Dinah said happily, pulling the named item out of her pocket and holding it up.
"You can keep the helmet and gloves if you like," Taylor said through Raptaur. "You never know, they might come in useful some day."
"Thank you," the girl said, politely but with a broad smile.
"You were admiring that poster earlier," 'Metis' remarked, pointing at the one of Saurial in a ready pose. "Would you like a copy of it?"
"I would, very much," Dinah assured her. Lisa glanced at Taylor's Saurial aspect, who waved at the table in front of her. A duplicate poster formed there, making Dinah produce an impressed grin. "Wow."
"Want me to autograph it?" Taylor asked.
"That would be fantastic," their visitor said politely. "I have a pen." She held out the one she had in her hand still with an amused look. Taylor took it and signed the bottom right corner of the poster, then handed the pen back and rolled the poster up, giving it to the younger girl.
"Here you go."
"This has been so much fun," Dinah smiled as she jumped off the chair. With no warning she quickly hugged Taylor, who knelt and returned it, then dashed over and repeated it with 'Raptaur'. Everyone laughed at the ridiculous contrast in sizes. The petite twelve year old practically vanished into the arms of the huge reptilian figure.
"Take care, Dinah," her other aspect rumbled. "It was a lot of fun. See you around sometime."
"I hope so," she replied. "OK, Mom, I'm ready to go."
She and her mother, along with Danny, headed for the door. She waved as they left, the others waving back. Roy, who had hung back, nodded to them. "Once again, thank you. It meant a lot to her. And me."
"You're welcome, Roy," Taylor said through Saurial. "I think we all enjoyed it."
"Good bye, Ladies. Until next time. Give my best to Kaiju." He left, pulling the door shut.
The four left behind looked at each other. "Well, that was interesting," the Varga said, using Raptaur.
"Wasn't it?" Lisa replied thoughtfully. "Very interesting indeed."
"Found out what was going on with her?" Amy asked.
"Yes, Lisa was right, she's Prospect, definitely, and she's a pre-cog. A powerful one, although limited by Thinker headaches," Taylor replied, leaning on the table. "She gets percentage likelihood chances of future events if the question is formulated correctly. Apparently she doesn't actually have any choice about answering them, which is sort of annoying, I suspect. I tested it, when I asked her if she'd tell anyone about something I could show her. She told me just under half a percent chance, then gave me a really filthy look."
Amy snickered. "Poor girl. How many questions can she do before the pain gets too bad?"
"Half a dozen or so. Think a symbiote would help?"
"Probably, but it would most likely take the neural amplifier upgrade to fix it properly. Which is difficult to do if the PRT have her in the Wards, they give all the people they get their hands on full medicals which includes a detailed MRI scan. They'd spot the difference the next time they scanned her, and although I don't think they'd instantly work out what it was, they'd probably think it was a tumor." Amy looked thoughtful. "I might be able to disguise it a little more effectively, I'll have to think about it."
"Well, it's not like we're going to upgrade her just like that, but it's useful to have a plan in case it ever comes up." Taylor picked up one of the cans of soda left over and idly ate it.
"What did you actually show her?"
"My tail." Amy looked puzzled, causing her to grin. "It seemed the safest thing right now. I considered showing her Saurial, which would have been funny since she actually suggested that I might be a Changer and secretly Saurial all along."
"Which you are."
"Which I am. But the problem is that sooner or later she'd see Saurial and Taylor at the same time and she'd figure out something was up. On the other hand, Taylor with a tail is fine from that point of view and took a lot less explaining. If we get to know her better, I'll probably let her know more. Or if she works any more of it out, I guess. But that'll do for now."
Lisa looked at her, having been deep in thought up until now. "Are you going to tell Danny about any of this?"
Taylor shook her head. "I'll tell him that we confirmed some of your theories and I showed her my tail, but I won't go into details. He won't mind, he doesn't need to know that part anyway and understands that I don't want to give away any more about other Parahumans than necessary."
"All right. That sounds reasonable."
"I believe we can consider this a successful evening," the Varga stated.
They all nodded. "Definitely. And fun too. Maybe we should be giving rides on the Boardwalk, there were a lot of people who seemed pretty envious," Taylor grinned.
"Something for the summer," Amy said. "So what do you want to do now?"
"Same thing we do every night?"
"Try to confuse the fuck out of the world?"
"That's it."
Taylor snickered. "I have some interesting ideas along those lines. But..." Amy and Lisa watched as Raptaur disappeared. She rubbed her head for a moment. "That was starting to be a little tiring. But it's been about two and a half hours continuously which is more than we expected."
"How long do you need to rest before you can do it again?" Lisa asked.
"A couple of hours should do it. It's basically a mental exercise, a really complicated one. Like playing half a dozen chess games against yourself and having to visualize all the boards and keep them separate." She ate another can of soda. "I'll build up more stamina with time but I'm completely happy with even this."
Forming a copy on the other side of the room and transferring to it, she added, "And I can do this without much effort, since the duplicate is only there for a moment. Which is so fucking cool I can't believe it."
"I have never been as envious of you as I am right now," Amy grumbled. "You figured out how to teleport and didn't even realize you'd done it! That's just not fair."
Smirking, Taylor teleported back to her start position. "But Lisa says it's not teleporting, really."
"Close enough," Lisa said. "I don't have a better word for it, even though it's not strictly accurate, and as far as anyone can tell that's what you're doing, so you may as well call it that." She sighed, watching as Taylor hopped around the room again, blinking in and out of existence. "Stop that, I'm getting dizzy."
"You'd be doing this too," her friend laughed, but relented, stopping her popping around the place next to her.
"True," the black reptile said. "Very true."
"We really need to learn demon magic," Amy said.
"He thinks it's probably possible, but he's still trying to work out how to actually teach it," Taylor reported. "It's sort of complicated to explain if you're not in my head."
"I can wait. For a while." Amy grinned at her. "Come on, let's make another biogun. And I've finished the design for the one-shot healing symbiotes, by the way."
"Great! We need to find someone with an injury to test them on."
"That's easy enough," Lisa giggled darkly, forming a knife in her hand and flicking the tip of the blade meaningfully. They shared a look, grinned, and went into the workroom. "I also need to talk to you about explosives, Amy."
"Explosives?"
"Explosives."
"Tell me more."
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I love how blasé Colin is about this alarm that keeps triggering.
Logic does wonders for his stress levels.
Edit: And now that I seen and have read the bonus chapter: (well played)
I agree with this response. It tends to be similar to my default as well.
Mr. Torgue would probably agree.
Logic does wonders for his stress levels.
Edit: And now that I seen and have read the bonus chapter: (well played)
I agree with this response. It tends to be similar to my default as well.
Mr. Torgue would probably agree.
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- Location
- US
But Victor, what did you expect them to do with the tallest building in town?
Edit: And the chapter I'm remarking on is the second one up from this post, for those wondering.
Edit: And the chapter I'm remarking on is the second one up from this post, for those wondering.
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But of course!
Serves the nazi's right for showing off like that in the first place. :lol
189. A Day In The Life (canonized guest addition)
- Location
- Phillips County, Colorado
Note: As I said previously, a No-Prize to anyone who recognizes the movie I pulled some of the names from, without using Google.
And now, without further adeu, allow me to proudly present the following omake:
Antonio woke with the dawn. It had been decades since the Old Country and a small village, but that was one habit that he never seemed to break. Despite New York's severe lack of roosters.
Of course, waking with the dawn in a penthouse apartment above a nice Italian restaurant wasn't bad. He kissed his sleeping wife and headed to the bathroom.
A shower, a shave, a nice suit laid out by his manservant, then he sat down to a prima colazione of tramezzino, fette biscottate and cafe latte.
After all, just because one was no longer in Italy didn't mean that one had to eat like a northern barbarian. Or like a German, God forbid.
And what the English ate for breakfast went without saying.
As he finished his coffee, Luigi brought him the day's paperwork for his legitimate businesses. His assistant and manservant had his usual frown - the boy disapproved not that he owned legitimate businesses to launder money, but of the fact that they were traditional Italian restaurants. Luigi felt that his master was pandering to the stereotypes.
Which he admittedly was. Oftentimes the best way to hide something was to show people what they already expected to see. A jovial Italian grandfather, a Mustache Pete, who owned a chain of restaurants. They saw what they wanted to see and looked no further. The smart ones looked deeper. But they were also smart enough to know the dangers of looking too deep.
Like Legend. Nice boy, that. Respectful, polite, and knew when to not look. Pity he was gay, but hey, he'd heard they might adopt. I'll have to send them something nice. Maybe set them up with a diaper service? Joey's grandkid owns one.
Once the daily paperwork for the dozens of restaurants up and down the East Coast was finished, Luigi brought him the real paperwork. The information and requests for information that was far too sensitive to ever get near a computer. He had learned that if you turned ANYTHING digital, it lived forever on the web. The only truly secure computer was the one that hadn't been built yet.
Hmm. Another request from Phil for the latest on the Family. His old acquaintance was interested in cleaning up Boston and wanted to know if word could be passed to the Family, Kaiju specifically, asking if she could remove some of the more irritating architectural eyesores in the city.
Probably his OCD kicking in again. Though one had to admit that when Phil set out to make something look impressive, he did the job handsomely. Just look at Roy's office.
Speaking of which, an email from Roy thanking him for the snitch. He sent off a quick reply in return, thanking Roy for helping him. Settling the inter-family war that Buscafusco started through his inability to keep his pants zipped up was a great favor indeed. He appended a request for a few photos of Miss Militia giving the fool a set of black eyes for trying to hit on her.
It would happen. The man just couldn't conceive that any woman could possibly refuse him.
Ah. An email from Ms. Costa-Brown through a HyperCrypt account. Who's being naughty now, Chief Director? Demanding everything I know about the Family? And a veiled threat, too? Shame on you, Rebecca.
He archived that email, setting it aside for now.
Oooh, look. Something from Johnny in Chicago. My, my, DiFronzo was STILL pissed. Antonio made a note to forward all the info on Skidmark, that little stronzo. The Unwritten Rules were one thing, but starting a war with something that could bench press a supertanker, then no-sell an attack by Eidolon was something else entirely.
So sorry, Adam, you sfigato, but I'm tossing you under the bus here.
Nah. Not sorry at all. Addio, Skidmark. Give my regards to Satan when you get there.
And hey, "Sal the Shark" Macelli was calling in a favor... damn. Skidmark strikes again. Pittsburgh now? Looks like the little zoccala was headed back towards Brockton Bay. Best warn everyone. He sent off a brief note to Danny. At least they were talking again. Maybe he might eventually get to see little Taylor again. She had been such a cute baby. Pity about Annette.
Curious how the driver who T-boned her car had another accident. Fatal, that second accident. Fell up a staircase and broke his neck. Danny didn't need to know about that, of course.
He fired off another HyperCrypt email, this one to eventually, anonymously, land in Dragon's mailbox. Gun running? Ok, it happens. But thermobaric grenades? That merda stopped NOW, before the PRT became pissed enough to up the ante. Killing PRT troopers was bad for business. No surprise that Communists were involved. He summoned Luigi, and gave orders to get Manny Bergman here, yesterday. The consigliere would know who those Commie bastards were, and that information would get to Piggot as fast as humanly possible.
Killing Commies was like killing Nazis. It's a public service. Heh.
He made a mental note to do something painful to Kaiser and his goose-stepping minions, someday soon. Tio Marcel would have wanted it that way.
Noting the clock, he pushed himself away from the keyboard. Luigi would be laying on a nice pranzo soon, and he'd always nag his boss about eating properly. It was a running gag between those in the know that the only two people who could nag Antonio were his wife and Luigi.
Luigi had laid on a nice pasta fazool and an insalata caprese. He and Serafina had been getting on him about his weight and his smoking. Eh.
Manny arrived, Luigi set a place for him, and they discussed the situation in Brockton Bay. Word would be put out. Danny Hebert was the Boss of the Docks in Brockton Bay, and nothing that might irritate him or his daughter would be tolerated. Gun running, hard drugs and working girls were out. Soft stuff like untaxed marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol were in. Running numbers was okay, so long as you didn't run them near the Docks. And if you had to break a few legs, take them somewhere else first before you broke them. Taylor was a young thing still, and while she had grown up in Brockton Bay, it wouldn't do to push any buttons. She'd already taken enough shit from that Hess girl, she didn't need her Uncle Tony's people adding to that list.
That would do for now. The Teamsters were keeping a watchful eye out in the Bay, and would let him know if Danny needed any help, or something heavier than the "gifts" he'd already sent. Though that was unlikely, given that the Family had already expressed its displeasure about fools traipsing around the docks. The fact that Kaiju, such a sweet gal, had already solo'ed Lung had the smart people headed off for pastures new. Only the stupid and the Merchants were left - wasn't that redundant? - and that problem was about to solve itself. Hopefully without too much bloodshed. NO ONE wanted Kaiju showing up on their doorstep, demanding that they clean up a problem they might be responsible for.
Bad for business, that.
With lunch over, he got a message off to the Russian mob, pointing out that Kaiju might just feel annoyed that it was a bunch of unreconstructed Commies who'd supplied the weapons used by the Merchants, and that they really should see to things in their own house, so to speak. That should be enough for now. But it was a temporary bandage on the problem. He'd have to do something more permanent, soon.
Something a little more final.
He got out a cigar and some of the limoncello that Roy had sent him and took a brief break from work.
Getting back to business, he made certain everyone knew that the idiot was headed back towards Brockton Bay (that one was a free one, getting rid of Skidmark was practically a public service), finished the last few favors of the day, and went to meet Serafina for dinner in the restaurant below.
After all, when the owner eats there, you know the place had to be good. Free advertising, that's what it was. And it was good. He'd gotten his hands on every good chef in North America, and quite a few elsewhere.
Dinner took a while - it was important for the "just another businessman" to be seen out and about with his wife. Nothing mysterious here, no sir. Tio Marcel had drilled that into him. Mysteries make people curious, and curious people weren't good for business.
Then, about nine in the evening, he turned in for a well deserved rest. He wasn't a spring chicken anymore. The late nights could be left to the young turks.
Speaking of which, he'd best keep an eye on Taylor. He had a feeling his grandniece was going places.
And now, without further adeu, allow me to proudly present the following omake:
A Day In The Life.
oOo
oOo
Antonio woke with the dawn. It had been decades since the Old Country and a small village, but that was one habit that he never seemed to break. Despite New York's severe lack of roosters.
Of course, waking with the dawn in a penthouse apartment above a nice Italian restaurant wasn't bad. He kissed his sleeping wife and headed to the bathroom.
A shower, a shave, a nice suit laid out by his manservant, then he sat down to a prima colazione of tramezzino, fette biscottate and cafe latte.
After all, just because one was no longer in Italy didn't mean that one had to eat like a northern barbarian. Or like a German, God forbid.
And what the English ate for breakfast went without saying.
As he finished his coffee, Luigi brought him the day's paperwork for his legitimate businesses. His assistant and manservant had his usual frown - the boy disapproved not that he owned legitimate businesses to launder money, but of the fact that they were traditional Italian restaurants. Luigi felt that his master was pandering to the stereotypes.
Which he admittedly was. Oftentimes the best way to hide something was to show people what they already expected to see. A jovial Italian grandfather, a Mustache Pete, who owned a chain of restaurants. They saw what they wanted to see and looked no further. The smart ones looked deeper. But they were also smart enough to know the dangers of looking too deep.
Like Legend. Nice boy, that. Respectful, polite, and knew when to not look. Pity he was gay, but hey, he'd heard they might adopt. I'll have to send them something nice. Maybe set them up with a diaper service? Joey's grandkid owns one.
Once the daily paperwork for the dozens of restaurants up and down the East Coast was finished, Luigi brought him the real paperwork. The information and requests for information that was far too sensitive to ever get near a computer. He had learned that if you turned ANYTHING digital, it lived forever on the web. The only truly secure computer was the one that hadn't been built yet.
Hmm. Another request from Phil for the latest on the Family. His old acquaintance was interested in cleaning up Boston and wanted to know if word could be passed to the Family, Kaiju specifically, asking if she could remove some of the more irritating architectural eyesores in the city.
Probably his OCD kicking in again. Though one had to admit that when Phil set out to make something look impressive, he did the job handsomely. Just look at Roy's office.
Speaking of which, an email from Roy thanking him for the snitch. He sent off a quick reply in return, thanking Roy for helping him. Settling the inter-family war that Buscafusco started through his inability to keep his pants zipped up was a great favor indeed. He appended a request for a few photos of Miss Militia giving the fool a set of black eyes for trying to hit on her.
It would happen. The man just couldn't conceive that any woman could possibly refuse him.
Ah. An email from Ms. Costa-Brown through a HyperCrypt account. Who's being naughty now, Chief Director? Demanding everything I know about the Family? And a veiled threat, too? Shame on you, Rebecca.
He archived that email, setting it aside for now.
Oooh, look. Something from Johnny in Chicago. My, my, DiFronzo was STILL pissed. Antonio made a note to forward all the info on Skidmark, that little stronzo. The Unwritten Rules were one thing, but starting a war with something that could bench press a supertanker, then no-sell an attack by Eidolon was something else entirely.
So sorry, Adam, you sfigato, but I'm tossing you under the bus here.
Nah. Not sorry at all. Addio, Skidmark. Give my regards to Satan when you get there.
And hey, "Sal the Shark" Macelli was calling in a favor... damn. Skidmark strikes again. Pittsburgh now? Looks like the little zoccala was headed back towards Brockton Bay. Best warn everyone. He sent off a brief note to Danny. At least they were talking again. Maybe he might eventually get to see little Taylor again. She had been such a cute baby. Pity about Annette.
Curious how the driver who T-boned her car had another accident. Fatal, that second accident. Fell up a staircase and broke his neck. Danny didn't need to know about that, of course.
He fired off another HyperCrypt email, this one to eventually, anonymously, land in Dragon's mailbox. Gun running? Ok, it happens. But thermobaric grenades? That merda stopped NOW, before the PRT became pissed enough to up the ante. Killing PRT troopers was bad for business. No surprise that Communists were involved. He summoned Luigi, and gave orders to get Manny Bergman here, yesterday. The consigliere would know who those Commie bastards were, and that information would get to Piggot as fast as humanly possible.
Killing Commies was like killing Nazis. It's a public service. Heh.
He made a mental note to do something painful to Kaiser and his goose-stepping minions, someday soon. Tio Marcel would have wanted it that way.
Noting the clock, he pushed himself away from the keyboard. Luigi would be laying on a nice pranzo soon, and he'd always nag his boss about eating properly. It was a running gag between those in the know that the only two people who could nag Antonio were his wife and Luigi.
Luigi had laid on a nice pasta fazool and an insalata caprese. He and Serafina had been getting on him about his weight and his smoking. Eh.
Manny arrived, Luigi set a place for him, and they discussed the situation in Brockton Bay. Word would be put out. Danny Hebert was the Boss of the Docks in Brockton Bay, and nothing that might irritate him or his daughter would be tolerated. Gun running, hard drugs and working girls were out. Soft stuff like untaxed marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol were in. Running numbers was okay, so long as you didn't run them near the Docks. And if you had to break a few legs, take them somewhere else first before you broke them. Taylor was a young thing still, and while she had grown up in Brockton Bay, it wouldn't do to push any buttons. She'd already taken enough shit from that Hess girl, she didn't need her Uncle Tony's people adding to that list.
That would do for now. The Teamsters were keeping a watchful eye out in the Bay, and would let him know if Danny needed any help, or something heavier than the "gifts" he'd already sent. Though that was unlikely, given that the Family had already expressed its displeasure about fools traipsing around the docks. The fact that Kaiju, such a sweet gal, had already solo'ed Lung had the smart people headed off for pastures new. Only the stupid and the Merchants were left - wasn't that redundant? - and that problem was about to solve itself. Hopefully without too much bloodshed. NO ONE wanted Kaiju showing up on their doorstep, demanding that they clean up a problem they might be responsible for.
Bad for business, that.
With lunch over, he got a message off to the Russian mob, pointing out that Kaiju might just feel annoyed that it was a bunch of unreconstructed Commies who'd supplied the weapons used by the Merchants, and that they really should see to things in their own house, so to speak. That should be enough for now. But it was a temporary bandage on the problem. He'd have to do something more permanent, soon.
Something a little more final.
He got out a cigar and some of the limoncello that Roy had sent him and took a brief break from work.
Getting back to business, he made certain everyone knew that the idiot was headed back towards Brockton Bay (that one was a free one, getting rid of Skidmark was practically a public service), finished the last few favors of the day, and went to meet Serafina for dinner in the restaurant below.
After all, when the owner eats there, you know the place had to be good. Free advertising, that's what it was. And it was good. He'd gotten his hands on every good chef in North America, and quite a few elsewhere.
Dinner took a while - it was important for the "just another businessman" to be seen out and about with his wife. Nothing mysterious here, no sir. Tio Marcel had drilled that into him. Mysteries make people curious, and curious people weren't good for business.
Then, about nine in the evening, he turned in for a well deserved rest. He wasn't a spring chicken anymore. The late nights could be left to the young turks.
Speaking of which, he'd best keep an eye on Taylor. He had a feeling his grandniece was going places.
oOo
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- Location
- Earth Bet
Fun chapters as usual. But for some reason this particular phrase caught my eye. I feel like "said ruefully" would work better here, instead of "sighed". Sighing feels like it would put a strange pause in the middle of the sentence.
Or maybe I just like the word ruefully.
Either way, I was surprised at how taylor resolved things, but in retrospect it was probably the best way.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Sigh.
You're right. It does scan better.
He said ruefully...
Edit: Edited...
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
A double update again? Why thank you Mp~!
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
You know, if not for the fact Dean already knows some of the truth about Taylor, she can play her tail issue completely straight... Sort of.
Miss Militia: "So, you did Trigger in the locker."
Taylor: "Yeah, but not without some power issues. If it wasn't for the Family I would have died for sure."
MM: "Which is why you have a tail."
Taylor: "Yeah, they had to do some pretty heavy duty Life Scuplting to save me. This <waves at tail> was a little awkward at first but I've gotten used to it."
MM: "But, you're not a Stranger or a Brute?"
Taylor: "That was a side effect of them fixing me up. I'm a Mover actually, but it's really embarrassing. Amy, would you mind setting up that privacy screen?"
Amy: "Sure thing."
Taylor teleports behind the screen and pokes her head out. "I've been a cape for months. STILL can't figure out how to bring a stitch of clothing with me."
Miss Militia: "So, you did Trigger in the locker."
Taylor: "Yeah, but not without some power issues. If it wasn't for the Family I would have died for sure."
MM: "Which is why you have a tail."
Taylor: "Yeah, they had to do some pretty heavy duty Life Scuplting to save me. This <waves at tail> was a little awkward at first but I've gotten used to it."
MM: "But, you're not a Stranger or a Brute?"
Taylor: "That was a side effect of them fixing me up. I'm a Mover actually, but it's really embarrassing. Amy, would you mind setting up that privacy screen?"
Amy: "Sure thing."
Taylor teleports behind the screen and pokes her head out. "I've been a cape for months. STILL can't figure out how to bring a stitch of clothing with me."
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
I'm saving that one.
Tin Mother
(Verified Human)
- Location
- Here
- Pronouns
- She/Hers
That's actually not a bad idea if you subtract the tail related bits. If they ever needed to accidentally "out" Taylor as a cape they can say she DID trigger in the locker as a limited teleporter so she's clearly not a changer or a Family member in disguise. However any MRI would put paid to that as a lie since she doesn't have a Corona Pollentia or Gemma. I suppose it would depend on circumstances though.
Last edited:
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Thanks, fixed.
I'm pretty sure that any really detailed medical exam would figure out there's something strange about her; that's basically what happened with Panacea after all. And her brain has explicitly been mentioned as no longer being very human.
At some point they may want to lay some groundwork with her and Danny mentioning that they've "had some work done" by the Family. Then she'll have an explanation ready just in case, for example, she gets shot in front of witnesses and the bullet bounces off.